


The Amenity of The World

by asocialconstruct



Series: Basic [10]
Category: Starfighter (Comic)
Genre: Domesticity, M/M, off-screen noncon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-27
Updated: 2013-11-11
Packaged: 2017-12-13 02:57:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 17
Words: 36,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/819164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asocialconstruct/pseuds/asocialconstruct
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-war followup to Someone Else's Problems; runs concurrent with After, with a focus on Keeler and Encke.  Mentions previous noncon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Keeler

**Author's Note:**

> Keeler = Hector, Encke = James

“No discovery of mine has made, or is likely to make, directly or indirectly, for good or ill, the least difference to the amenity of the world.”

GH Hardy, _Mathematician’s Apology_

* * *

“Don’t think we need all that bed, baby,” Encke said, glancing around the empty room, shifting from foot to foot.  

Hector glanced over his shoulder from where he stood at the window, the big floor to ceiling windows overlooking the city in sunset.  Small living room, small kitchen, big bedroom with loft ceilings, he’d signed the lease sight unseen before they were even restationed and ordered the bed delivered.  He hadn’t had the time to arrange anything else, but really, what else did they need?  It was worth it then, the room and the two of them bathed in warm light, Encke glancing around the clean new apartment their key had opened.

“You don’t think we do?” Hector asked, padding back across the room to take Encke’s hand.  The rest of their things would be sent down from orbit tomorrow, but that night it was just them, just overnight bags and their little bit of mail and no other baggage.  “I can think of a couple things we could use all that bed for.”

Encke let himself be drawn across the room, rolling his eyes as Hector dug the set of sheets out of the mail and tossed them at him.  Encke wasn’t so serious or so dangerous as he tried to look, not after those first few weeks, not when he was throwing pale blue sheets across the bed and stooping to tuck in the corners a little crooked.  Hector tucked the other side in neater, smiling across the expanse of the bed at where Encke frowned at his rumpled corner that wouldn’t lay flat.

Hector would get it later; making the bed neat didn’t matter just then, not with Encke looking up so surprised as Hector crawled across the bed to him, to lie on his belly and cup Encke’s face.  Encke wasn’t so overwhelming as he’d been, flustered now as Hector kissed him, mouth warm and soft as he leaned against the edge of the bed.  Hector let Encke stroke his hair, scalp tingling under his fingers, starting to blush warm.  Soft lips and a sure, cool tongue, Encke teased and retreated, catching at his lips just enough to make him press forward and then try to catch Encke himself, Encke’s maddening teasing making him do the chasing.

“I, um, got my test results back today,” Hector said finally, pulling back just a little.  “All negative.”  Four years of worry gone just like that, a little blood drawn on their last shore leave, fifteen minutes at the free clinic on the seedy side of town doing more for his health than Fleet medical ever had.

Encke combed a few strands of hair back into Hector’s braid, a thoughtful look on his face.  “All clean?” he asked, and Hector kept himself from wincing at the word, since Encke didn’t mean anything by it even if all of Hector’s other Enckes had used it like a weapon.  “Mine too,” Encke said, kissing the tip of Hector’s nose.

Hector smiled and sat up, pulling his shirt off.  It wouldn’t have mattered either way, but this was like starting over, starting like they should have in the beginning with knowing for sure.  He tugged Encke up to him, turning on his belly as Encke knelt on the bed, Hector arching his back to Encke’s hands and enjoying the small surprised noise he made, still caught off guard after all this time.

Encke curled over him to kiss Hector’s back and side, tugging his pants away, precise and deliberate in this as he was in everything else, careful even in the way he grazed teeth over the curve of Hector’s ass and sucked a little bruise on his side.  Methodical, like he’d memorized every step in precise sequence, a brush of fingers here, a pause there to breathe and leave another small bruising kiss, hands warm and steady.  Hector breathed slowly, eyes flooded orange and warm even closed, the sunset lighting and reflecting off every wall and bathing them in warmth.

“You ready for a condom, baby?” Encke asked, fingers curled against Hector’s thigh, tugging him up just a little to tease the crease of his thigh.

Hector twisted, enough to catch Encke for a quick kiss and watch him sit up to pull off his own shirt, solid dark muscle radiant in the light from the windows.  “Do you want to go without, this time?” Hector asked, breath catching just as Encke’s did, glancing up at him from where he’d started undoing his fly.

“You want to?” Encke asked carefully, leaning down to kiss again, running a hand down Hector’s side and thigh, pausing to squeeze his ass, fingers straying.  Hector nodded against the mattress, shaking with Encke’s broad hand steadying him.

Encke took his time, standing to step out of his pants and hunt through their overnight bag for the lube, coming back to kneel over him.  Hector arched his back, biting back a moan as Encke rubbed slicked fingers into him.  Deliberate with that as in all things, laughing quietly when Hector pushed back insistently, getting a knee under himself to make Encke fuck him harder, until Encke pushed him down again to lie flat and pleasantly smothered under Encke’s weight.

Encke breathed slowly against Hector’s shoulder, scattering kisses and rubbing the tip of his cock against the curve of Hector’s ass, slow and warm and insistent, deliberate and precise.  Encke rocked into him, just the tip of his cock pressed in, making Hector wait for it and whine, pushing up against him, frantic to get Encke’s hand around his cock.  But Encke wouldn’t, pulling him up only a little, just enough to press the rough pads of his fingers into the hollow of Hector’s hip, steadying him and making him arch his back for more.

Encke wrapped a broad arm under Hector’s chest, nose pressed into his hair and finally pushing into him, all the familiar warm burn of him as Encke hummed against his shoulder.  It was undignified, wanting so badly, needing something like this, Encke covering and enveloping him like this, and Hector desperately clung to the sheets, trying to hold on under the weight of how badly he needed Encke’s completeness.  Encke’s hand found his on the mattress, twisting their fingers together, tangled and hot with the roughness of Encke’s calluses and the comforting weight of his hand.

He could feel every muscle and breath, Encke pressed flushed against him, spreading him open and vulnerable, moving smoothly into him warm and steady, slick and hard as Hector tried to breath against the sheets, gasping as Encke kissed his throat.  “God, you’re beautiful,” Encke breathed against him, brushing the fingers of his other hand against Hector’s parted lips.

“You’re so good,” Encke murmured as Hector caught his fingers, a kiss and a bite, Encke shuddering against him as Hector sucked two of his fingers deep, circling the tip of his tongue against the pads of his fingers like against the head of his cock.  “I think about this all the time, fucking you slow,” Encke said against his ear, “fucking your skinny ass and feeling you come for me.”

Hector moaned around his fingers, so close and needing Encke closer, trying not to bite him, trying so hard to wait for him.  Encke nipped sharp bites to his shoulder, small and deliberate, as light and delicate as the rest of him was heavy and dense, rolling into him.  Barely moving at all, just the two of them pressed together.

He couldn’t bear it anymore, Encke’s slow rocking pushing him over the edge with short gasps, shuddering as Encke finally pulled his ass up off the mattress, getting one hand under him to stroke Hector’s cock as he came, fucking him in long, deliberate smooth strokes.  Hector felt it before Encke’s gasped curse, muffled against his shoulder, Encke’s cock thickening and pulsing in him as he came, thighs hot where he pulled Hector’s ass back against him and held him tight, both of them shuddering with the release of it after too long.

Encke eased him back down gently, so gently, precise and careful even as he pressed Hector back into the mattress with his weight, cock throbbing lazily and so perfect, nuzzling at the back of Hector’s neck as he eased them apart.

Hector winced and pulled away, Encke making a sleepy, disappointed noise as he left.  He glanced back over his shoulder, smiling to himself as Encke curled around the warm space where Hector had been, half to sleep already.  Went to the bathroom and cleaned himself up, the lube and come distressingly unfamiliar after more than a year together with condoms, an unpleasant reminder of a different Encke, and Hector wished he hadn’t thought it as soon as it formed.

“Well, that was different,” Hector said lightly as he padded back, pleasantly sore and appreciating the view, of the city bathed in the last afterglow of sunset, of Encke laid out on his belly, naked and gorgeous in the fading light.  Of everything Hector had ever wanted or needed, waiting for him sleepily.

“That was real good, baby,” Encke said, rolling onto his back to reach for him, hand grazing his thigh as Hector came back to the bed.  “Have to go without more often.”

Hector laughed, making a face as he crawled back next to Encke, who watched him with heavy eyes.  “Maybe not.  I forgot how gross sex is without a condom,” he said, trying to brush it off, trying not to remind Encke of what sometimes hung between them, that Encke wasn’t the only Encke, as much as Hector tried to pretend he’d been the only one.

“Oh,” Encke said, his mouth pressed thin as Hector pulled the sheet up over them both.  He turned away as Hector reached for him, rolling onto his side, cold and distant.

“I didn’t mean—James, I didn’t mean you, just—“

“It’s fine.  Just go to sleep, Keeler.”

Hector frowned at Encke’s back, hurt and not sure how to not make it a fight.  He finally lay down, curling against Encke’s back, nose pressed to his warm skin and arm over his waist.  He smelled like sweat and the roses wilting with their overnight bag, like aftershave and domesticity. “I’m sorry,” Hector whispered, but Encke didn’t respond, just shrugged.  Put his hand over Hector’s after a while, if that was forgiveness, even if it didn’t really feel like it.


	2. Keeler

“Wake up, beautiful,” Encke murmured, slipping back into bed.  Hector hadn’t been asleep, curled on his side miserable and looking out the windows, wondering what he’d done wrong that Encke had left without waking him up, feeling pitiful and not ready to get up and see if they were going to have a fight over the night before.  So when Encke leaned over him to kiss, Hector turned like he had been asleep and let Encke’s mouth be forgiveness, tasting like coffee and his fingertips warm on Hector’s cheek.

“The relocation office called too fucking early this morning, Captain Keeler _sir_ , said your shit’s getting shipped down from orbit in a couple hours,” Encke said, sitting up to get the coffee and bag of doughnuts he’d set on the floor.  Hector sat up, naked and sheepish at his own self-pity, even if Encke didn’t know, more sheepish still with the unfamiliarity of sitting in a civilian apartment with Encke in civilian clothes, a rarity even when they’d been on leave together.  Khaki shorts and a pale blue sweatshirt, he looked like a younger version of someone’s father.

“What you looking at, sweetheart?" Encke asked over the edge of his coffee cup.  "You gonna write me up for being out of uniform?”

“Just trying to decide if you look adorable or adorkable, Mr. Morgan,” Hector said, sipping his coffee, giving Encke’s shorts a significant look.

“Oh yeah?” Encke demanded, taking Hector’s coffee away from him, doughnuts forgotten on the floor again.  “You still look pretty fuckable, what do you think about that?”  Hector pulled Encke to him, the sheets tangled between them as Encke lay against him to bite his neck, rubbing his cock hard through the sheets, making Hector forget he’d ever been miserable.

* * *

The deliveries came all day, boxes of what few personal effects they’d both had on ship, a few more furniture deliveries of things Encke had picked out on Hector’s relocation budget, and then the big juggle of boxes and packages he went out and bought while Hector lay down for a nap mid afternoon.  Curtains and towels and placemats, and when Hector laughed at the flowered tea towels and set of platypus-printed sheets Encke carefully folded away into the linen closet, Encke just shrugged and said, “Thought they were cute.”

Shrugged again when Hector found the anal plug discreetly tucked in the bottom of one of the grocery bags, next to the cereal and shampoo and a new box of unflavored condoms.  All of it very discreet and business-like, Puck would have been disappointed.  

They sat in drifts of cardboard and plastic wrap that evening, all the furniture and new housewares coming with its own drift of waste, and like adults, they shoved it all into one corner of the tiny living room to deal with in the morning.  Hector sat on the floor, sorting through a box of things the relocation office had sent down, his and Encke’s things jumbled together when they’d packed for the last time, restationed to the colonies after Encke took his discharge papers.  Notes passed in meetings, their health insurance papers, doodles Encke had done and pasted to Hector’s locker, photos from when they’d been on leave together.

And photos of Encke, younger, with his arm over someone else’s shoulders.

“Is this Cain?” Hector asked, holding them up for Encke to see where he lay on the new couch.

They both looked so young, and so happy, Cain blushing and glancing over at Encke with something like a smile, trying to look tough, trying to hide what looked like adoration.  “He looks better without the mullet,” Hector said, shuffling through the others and trying not to blush at the picture of teenaged Cain’s ass.  

Cute, cute then as he was now, and sweeter in bed than he looked if Abel could be trusted, totally enamored and in love with Cain even the few times he’d fallen into bed with Hector, blushing asking if maybe Hector wanted to spend the night with the two of them sometime, or the three of them.  And Hector was a liar if he said he hadn’t seriously considered it, shocked when Abel whispered about his arrangement with Cain and Phobos’ fighter, wondering what it would be like but sure that Encke would never stand for that, even if he’d calmed down about the rest of their own arrangement.  Even if Cain was as beautiful and dangerous as Abel was sweet and earnest, the contrast between them sort of mesmerizing.

But then Encke and Abel had both always had good taste, and Encke couldn’t have been so bad to Cain as all the guilt he carried around, not with the way they looked at each other in the photos, not with the way Cain pressed his nose to Encke’s throat and smiled sleepily up at the camera in that last one.

Encke came to crouch behind Hector, frowning down at the photos thoughtfully.  “He, uh—yeah, I guess.  He got it cut at the end of basic sometime.”

“Were you friends before you joined up?” Hector asked, looking back and forth at the ones in front of the waterfalls.  “This doesn’t look like a base.”

“Nah, we went on leave a couple times together,” Encke said, with maybe a half smile, Hector couldn’t tell.  “Before, uh, before things got shitty between us, before he—“  Encke cut himself off with a shake of his head, not going to finish whatever he was going to say.

“Things couldn’t have been that bad, if you’re still friends.  It’ll be nice having them and the baby so close, I told Abel we’d babysit if they need it,” Hector said, part to cover his own jealous guilt, wanting Cain and Abel’s happy domesticity so badly.

“We should go on vacation sometime,” Encke announced, totally ignoring that.  He got up and took the photos with him, tucking them away with some of his things, a box of old photos and birthday cards from his aunt, all of it tucked away in the desk he’d picked out when he’d decided to enroll at the university.  Discreetly out of sight where Hector wouldn’t pry, with other mysteries like photos of his parents, and his teddy bear, and his service commendations, everything that was still too private even after more than a year together.

“You listening?” Encke asked, coming back to tug Hector up from the floor, sending him into the kitchen with a pat on the ass.  “Said you should put in for time off at fall break, we’ll do a road trip.  If you’re not too busy still with your head in the stars, Captain Keeler sir,” Encke said, starting to open cabinets and pull things down for dinner.

* * *

Encke wasn’t half so intimidating as he tried to seem, not when he sheepishly snuck back in from smoking after dinner, not when he stood behind Hector as he did the dinner dishes, grinding him into the kitchen counter and making a distraction of himself.  Nothing frightening about the way he swayed slowly against Hector’s back in time to the music from the radio, smelling like cigarettes and humming into Hector’s hair.

“I’m a little busy right now,” Hector murmured as Encke worked a hand into his front pocket, pressing kisses below his braid.

“Yeah?  Me too,” Encke said, pressing his hardening cock to Hector’s ass, tugging him back.  “God, baby, you smell so good.”

“I smell like garlic and sweat,” Hector laughed, swatting him away with a damp hand.  He was getting hard too, but that wasn’t any excuse, the dishes would still just be sitting there waiting for them in the morning.

“That’s what I said,” Encke murmured.  Anything Hector was going to say was cut off with a sharp bite to his ear as Encke popped the button of his fly, warm rough hand pushing down the front of his dirty jeans to cup Hector’s throbbing cock.  Hector laughed and finally relented, wiping his wet hands on Encke’s thighs, letting himself be pulled back to sit at the kitchen table, laughing again when Encke dug a condom and a bottle of lube from his back pocket and set it on the table in front of them.

“You were planning this,” Hector said, letting himself be settled on Encke’s lap, lying back with his head on Encke’s shoulder, moaning a little in the back of his throat as Encke stroked his cock and pressed hot lips to his throat, breath tickling.

“Just being optimistic, sweetheart,” Encke said.  He squeezed Hector’s cock just a little, pulling one of his knees up with his other hand, making warm promises with his lips against Hector’s ear.  “ _Fuck_ you get me hard when you moan like that,” he murmured, and Hector shivered, didn’t even know he’d made a sound, so focused on Encke’s hands and Encke’s mouth.  “Been thinking all day about fucking you over the kitchen table.  You know how bad you been teasing me all day, walking around with no shirt on and pounding all them nails in the wall?  I’m gonna bend you over the table and pound your tight little ass—“

“Oh my god, do _not_ whisper puns in my ear,” Hector laughed, arching his back to meet Encke’s hand, Encke laughing in his ear.  “Were you going to fuck me, or just talk all night?” he demanded, grinding his ass back, reaching back to scratch his fingers across the back of Encke’s head.

“The second one,” Encke mumbled into his neck, biting gently, swatting Hector’s thigh to get him up and yank his pants down off his ass, pulling him back still half dressed with his own cock freed and rubbing against Hector’s ass.  Encke reached around him for the lube and condom, his knuckles kneading the muscle of Hector’s ass as he rolled the condom on and lubed it.  Hector took the lube away from him, took his time reaching back and slowly pushing one lubed finger and then two into himself, leaning one elbow on the table and glancing over his shoulder to watch Encke’s reaction, rapt attention watching Hector fuck himself at their bright, clean kitchen table, hard cock in his hand.

Hector laughed and leaned over the table finally, weight on both arms and straddling Encke still seated in the chair, breathing slowly as Encke lined them up, pushing his weight back.  Encke pushed one broad hand up over Hector’s back, holding onto his shoulder, other hand steadying his cock as Hector concentrated on the slow pressure and burn, easing into throbbing heat against his prostrate, his own hard cock pulsing with the pressure.

Encke tried to pull him back, Hector’s ass cradled in the curve of his hips, sharp and perfect, but Hector propped his weight up against the table, glancing back at Encke again as he rocked.  He watched Encke’s face, taking slow controlled breaths as he watched Hector’s ass, hands on his hips and fingers curling tight against his thighs.

“Fuck you’re beautiful,” Encke breathed, looking up to meet Hector’s eyes, and Hector finally let himself be pulled back to kiss, biting Encke’s lip and stroking his own cock.  

He let Encke brush his long hair out of both of their faces, fingers tangled for just a second and sending a hot thrill down Hector’s back as Encke tugged his hand free.  He made up for it with kisses pressed down Hector’s throat working up to his ear, warm tongue circling and teasing.  Not teasing any more when he bit and thrust up into Hector, holding him steady as Hector stroked his own cock, breath frantic and gasping with Encke holding them together.  

“Come on, baby, fast for me,” Encke whispered, like when they’d snuck back to his office one night and Copernicus had almost caught them, moving around central to his own office while they tried to fuck quietly, Encke whispering dirty nothings in Hector’s ear.  “I want to see you come for me, baby, I want to see you come with my cock in you,” he murmured, and that did it, Hector coming shuddering hard into his hand as Encke bit his shoulder and held him in place, fucking him hard, lifting Hector off and slamming him back, just a little, just enough to make the sound fill their little kitchen, the sound of Hector’s ass slapping Encke’s thighs until Encke came and moaned in his ear, wrapping a broad arm around Hector’s chest to hold him closer as he finished.

“Fuck, I could hold you like this all night, you feel so good,” Encke mumbled against Hector’s shoulder when they were done, Hector lying back against him in the chair, spent.

“nnnnn . . . carry me to bed first,” Hector mumbled, cock twitching with every little move Encke made, still throbbing lazily in him.

“Thought you had dishes to finish,” Encke laughed, but helped Hector up, kissing as they got rid of the condom and stumbled back to the big blue bed.


	3. Encke

_Sacha thought he’d been quiet about it, pushing it down until it made him sick to his stomach. He curled over on himself, biting his knuckles to force himself to concentrate on a different kind of pain, but then there was Eight looming up next to his bed, yanking him up and sounding pissed.  “Fifty, get the fuck up,” he growled, pulling Sacha to his feet, hand tight on his arm as he shoved Sacha in front of him._

_“Would you shut the fuck up?” someone snarled in the dark as Sacha tried to swallow away his crying._

_Eight yanked him out of the barracks by the elbow, not bothering to pretend to be nice about it, rushing them out of there before anyone else got pissed enough to get out of bed and do something about it._

_Sacha swiped at his eyes as Eight shoved him out of there, trying to dry his face and swallow back his crying before Eight could beat the shit out of him, confused when Eight just shoved him against the wall in a dark corner of the corridor and stared him down._

_“Fifty, you have to shut up and get some fucking sleep or the sergeant’ll be on you worse tomorrow.  Just—look, everybody gets homesick, so don’t—“_

_“I’m not fucking homesick,” Sacha snarled, trying not to look like a pansy and knuckle at his eyes in front of Eight, grateful Eight hadn’t dragged him somewhere with light, where he could have seen Sacha’s red face._

_Eight gave him a long look and finally sighed, putting an arm around Sacha’s shoulders.  “I know, baby, I know.”  He pulled Sacha against him, warm and solid, ignoring the way Sacha stiffened and then eased against him.  “I know you’re not homesick, but fuck, you got to get some fucking sleep.”_

_Sacha nodded against his chest, wanting to push away, to show Eight he didn’t need this coddling, didn’t need him, but he couldn’t, and trying to not want it only made it worse, made his breath hitch and his eyes burn, trying to keep it quiet hoping Eight wouldn’t notice._

_“Sacha,” Eight said, and Sacha froze, the first time hearing him say it.  When Eight just said Fifty, snapping it, Sacha could pretend that all of it was happening to someone else, that Eight didn’t really know him, even though Eight knew more about him than anyone ever had.  Easier when Eight just called him Fifty, because Fifty didn’t matter, wasn’t real, just someone for everyone to push around while Sacha figured out how to get out of there and be someone no one would ever fuck with again._

_But Eight put a warm hand on his face, and it wasn’t happening to someone else, it was just Sacha there, alone and scared, with nobody who cared, because nobody had ever cared._

_Except Eight, maybe._

_“Sacha, baby, look at me,” Eight said, and Sacha did, finally, letting Eight pull his wet face up because there was no hiding it in the dark now, with the damp spot on Eight’s shirt where Sacha had pressed his cheek.  Eight didn’t say anything at first, just wiped Sacha’s damp cheek with his thumb.  “It’ll be okay.  I won’t let anything happen to you, I promise,” he said, even though they both knew that was already a lie._

* * *

James sat up, disoriented and off balance, coming out of some anxiety dream, waking up from one empty darkness to another.  Maybe one of the ones he’d had in the service, of falling, of being thrown out of the ship with nothing but his flightsuit and suffocating as his oxygen leaked out into the blackness.  He groped a hand sideways, feeling for Keeler curled away in that big expanse of empty bed, the anxiety of not finding him at first making his heart beat faster.

But Keeler was there, he was always there when James woke up out of the worst anxiety dreams, the ones of searching and searching for Keeler in the dark, feeling like he was chasing Keeler further away.  Keeler lay curled on his side facing the big windows, like the mornings where he pretended to be asleep, guilty over saying something snide the night before until James made him forget about it with coffee and coddling.

Keeler was there like he always was, turned away with a pillow tucked between them, where Keeler could press his back to it and have some warning if anyone grabbed him in his sleep.  An unconscious thing, James hoped, Keeler usually moving it away to find James and cuddle in the mornings if he woke up first.

Keeler shifted a little before James touched him, waking up with the movement, stretching against the little barrier he’d put between them.  Took a slow breath as James stroked his arm and moved the pillow, needing the reassurance of curling against Keeler’s back, kissing his bare shoulder as Keeler woke up more fully.  James ran his hand down Keeler’s skinny arm and bony thigh, all the hard, solid muscle of him, pulling Keeler back to wrap around him, nose pressed to the tangle of Keeler’s warm hair.  Teased the hollow of Keeler’s hip, thinking they might as well as long as they were both awake, too tired when they went to bed after James’ first week of classes and Keeler’s first week of getting his new R&D department set up.  

Stopped when Keeler made a little noise, nothing more than a half-hitched breath, something he’d tried to push down and not quite managed, the kind of noise he made when he was having his own nightmares, and it made James’ stomach go cold.  “Hector?  You okay?” James asked quietly.  Not Keeler, not sweetheart, not baby, trying not to be a reminder of all of Keeler’s other Enckes if he’d been wrong and Keeler hadn’t been all the way awake.

“James?” Keeler breathed, his voice small in the dark, shaky and relieved.  “I thought you were—I was having a bad dream.”  He rolled over suddenly, startling James back, pushing himself into James’ arms and holding him there until they settled with Keeler’s head pillowed on his chest.

"It's okay, baby, I won't let anything happen to you," James murmured, stroking Keeler's hair the way he'd asked for, slow and gentle.

* * *

That was their routine, separate nightmares and a big empty bed, James throwing himself into his classes and Keeler picking up dating as a hobby.  Only women, at least, Keeler explaining with a wave of his hand that Porthos and Abel didn’t count, since Abel was only kissing and no sex, and Porthos lived eight hours away with Phobos. At least James didn’t have to think about it when Keeler went to visit occasionally, when Phobos left to visit his parents.  James counted his small blessings that Keeler had never taken an interest in Thirty’s snot-nosed navigator, since he wasn’t sure he could put up with the brat for Keeler’s sake, even at a distance.

It was a comfortable, comforting routine, even if they didn’t talk about some parts of it, Keeler sleepily protesting being made a bookrest at night when James stayed up to finish his reading for class, the two of them falling asleep together but drifting apart during the night.

And Keeler’s dating wasn’t that bad, not when he came back with his cheeks flushed and looking like he’d just gotten laid, which had stopped being frustrating and started being intriguing some time around when James realized he had no idea what Keeler would be doing with the women he dated, only that Keeler seemed more confident, less scared, more himself when he came back from a date.  Making up for lost time, Keeler called it.  Study hall, James called it, time to do his reading for class without worrying about neglecting Keeler.

“How’d your date go?” he asked as Keeler came in the door, looking up from the homework he’d been trying to concentrate on.  Lysistrata had been interesting when he’d read it on his own, but reading it for class took all the fun out of ancient dick jokes, nearly putting him to sleep at the kitchen table trying to wait up for Keeler.

Keeler smiled beatifically, oblivious as he slung off his jacket.  “She’s gorgeous, and so smart—she said, if you were interested, she’d be interested in spending the night—“

James laughed at Keeler’s eager interest, the same hopeful, bashful look he’d had when he asked if James was interested in having Porthos stay the weekend.  Porthos wasn’t nearly so interesting as Keeler, or maybe Fifty’s pretty little navigator, but Abel was out of the question even if James wondered what exactly they did together on their long lunch breaks at work.  So he’d said yes to Porthos, intrigued despite himself, gratified with Keeler’s shy excitement.

But even for Keeler’s sake, James couldn’t muster even marginal interest in any women no matter how perfect, and just caught Keeler’s wrist when he came close enough to kiss.  “Baby, the only way I like long hair is when it comes along with a bony ass and a nice hard cock.”

“Bony ass—!”  Keeler protested as James pulled him down into his lap, ignoring the way he half-heartedly tried to squirm away as James nipped little bites to his neck and grabbed his ass.  “You weren’t complaining about my bony ass last night,” Keeler pouted, but not very convincingly, stroking the back of James’ head and kissing the tip of his ear.

“Not complaining now, either,” James said, grabbing Keeler’s perfect ass and standing up to carry him to the bedroom.


	4. Keeler

Encke dragged them both down, Hector landing across him on the bed, a tangle of elbows and knees as Encke hauled him up the bed and Hector tried to not knee him in the crotch, still not very good at avoiding it after all this time.  Encke just laughed, one arm around Hector’s back to pull them up the bed, pushing Hector’s hair out of his face to kiss.  A little rough, hands kneading Hector’s ass through his jeans, pulling them together.  Encke was already hard, moaning when Hector bit his lip, grinding up against him and tilting his head back for Hector to bite his throat.

He was gorgeous, body hard and mouth soft as Hector pushed a hand under his shirt, teasing at the sharp just of Encke’s hip, tugging at the band of his pants.  Pressed his mouth to the soft juncture of veins and skin in the hollow of Encke’s throat, making little circles with his tongue, biting the salt taste of him, Hector’s cock throbbing in time to Encke’s breath coming short and sharp, fingers making a promise of how slow and deep he’d fuck Hector later.

Hector pulled Encke up, wrapping his legs around Encke’s waist, moaning against him.  Encke rocked Hector against him, sure hands stroking Hector’s back through his shirt, the tight grey one Encke liked, the one Hector wore sometimes to meet women for coffee, that he used to wear with tight jeans and the leather jacket Encke picked out when they were on leave together, when they used to go out together.  What he would have worn for Encke, if Encke ever wanted to go out anymore.

He pushed Encke’s shirt off him, that soft blue sweatshirt that traced the lines of his muscles, softening the hard lines of him.  Popped the button of Encke’s khakis, needing more of his skin, needing more of him, just _needing_ him.  Hector stroked Encke’s hard cock, ready to be fucked hard and fast, hard and wanting.

“Not so hard, baby,” Encke murmured, catching at Hector’s elbow, nipping a bite at his shoulder.  Hector hummed his disappointment, wanting to jerk Encke off like Hector liked himself, hard and fast and a little rough, everything about Encke that made him so hard.  Encke shuddered and and moaned under him though, shaky and close, warm and solid.

Hector pushed him back to lie against the headboard as he yanked Encke’s khakis off him, gratified by Encke’s stifled groan when Hector pressed his mouth to Encke’s ticklish thigh.  He dragged his nails down Encke’s belly and leg, wetting his lips to tease the tip of Encke’s cock, sucking him sharp and letting him go, over and over to make Encke moan again.

He glanced up, pushing hair out of his face so Encke could watch Hector swallow his cock, eyes big as Hector hummed around him.  Hector stroked Encke’s thigh with light fingers, hands wandering so Encke wouldn’t startle from ticklishness, moving to tug Encke’s balls as he got closer, watching Encke tip his head back against the headboard, tense and breathing fast.

Encke’s hand tightened on Hector’s shoulder, and Hector pushed his fingers further back to tease, wanting to make Encke hiss and writhe with just the pressure of a couple fingers, and hit hard plastic instead.

“You were planning this,” Hector laughed, biting Encke’s inner thigh.

“Just being optimistic, sweetheart,” Encke breathed, humming as Hector rolled his tongue over the tip of Encke’s cock and eased the plug out of him.  Hummed and swallowed Encke deeper, teasing with the tip of his tongue as Encke pushed his hips up, straining against Hector’s hands.

“Fuck, Keeler—“ Encke groaned, tugging Hector away.  “I been waiting all night for this, fuck me already.”  Hector laughed again, sitting up to let Encke tear his clothes off him, shirt and pants thrown somewhere across the room for them to trip on in the morning.  

Encke kissed Hector’s hip and belly, biting his side where it would leave a little red mark, another to join the scatter of purple and red fading hickies Encke had left across Hector’s thighs last time.  The little pain made him shiver, a reminder of Encke’s other gentleness and the heavy warmth of him as Encke pulled Hector down to him again, lying back with his knees pulled up. Hector eased into him, smooth and tight and perfect, warm and slick already.  

Hector fucked him slow, rolling his hips, curling over Encke to kiss, warm and engulfing, Encke’s mouth distracting and perfect.  He curled a hand against Encke’s shoulder, holding tight to him, desperate to be as close to Encke as possible.  

Encke pushed against him, tipping his hips up, pushing himself up on his tiptoes to make Keeler fuck him faster, hands on Hector’s ass to pull him closer.  Encke’s broad hands pulled at him, making Keeler fuck him harder, controlling the pace even on his back.

Hector gave him a sharp bite and pulled back, sitting back and pulling Encke’s legs up, showing him who was in charge.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Encke hissed, arching his back into it, legs shaking and hand fisted in the sheets.  Hector kissed the back of his knees, stroking Encke’s thighs, so close and even closer watching Encke stroke himself light and fast.  Encke strained against him, legs hooked over Hector’s shoulders and shivering with how close he was, breath coming sharp and fast as Hector dug his fingers into Encke’s solid thighs.  

“Harder, baby, _harder_ ,” Encke moaned and froze, gasping as Hector snapped his hips into him, sharp and fast, Encke going tense and rigid as Hector came into him.  Moaned and cursed as he came, Hector fucking him in long slow strokes, too sensitive as Encke tightened around him.

Encke pulled Hector down to lie across his chest after, breathing slow against his hair.  “You were right, that is kind of gross without,” Encke mumbled, making Hector laugh sleepily.

“I love you so much,” Hector mumbled against Encke’s chest, tugging him closer.  Encke hummed in answer, stroking Hector’s hair, warm and solid and perfect.


	5. Encke

Two days later

_James bounced on his toes as they walked, trying not to look too eager in front of the lieutenant.  Everybody talked about fucking the lieutenant’s navigator, prissy and stuck up in public, a whore in private, and Encke said his navigator wanted it even harder, from two fighters._

_Encke’s navigator sat with his back to the door, long pale braid hanging down his back as he tapped at his computer, sitting crosslegged on the two mattresses pushed together on the floor.  Skinny and breakable, he looked small enough to snap in half, delicate and weak.  The perfect navigator._

_The pretty lieutenant’s back straightened at the sound of the door but he didn’t look back, cold and proper with his uniform jacket buttoned up tight, nothing like the photos James had seen passed around.  But that was what made it so fucking hot, because everyone knew what he was really like, the pretty faces he made when he came from being fucked rough, trying to hide it all behind the cold looks he gave all the fighters in the corridors._

_James watched as Encke pulled Keeler up, kissing the hollow of his throat.  Keeler pulled away but Encke held him tight, hand on his wrist between them, yanking him back._

_Encke smiled past Keeler to James, making a motion to come closer, and James did, putting the navigator between them, skinny and so breakable, thin enough James practically put his hands around the pretty little thing’s waist._

_“You ready for us like I told you, baby?” Encke said into Keeler’s hair, combing his fingers through it, tugging to pull the navigator’s head to the side, to bite the curve of his neck.  James pulled the navigator’s ass back against him, looking forward to digging his fingers into Keeler’s skinny thighs, barely any substance to him, pressed between the two of them._

_Keeler turned his face away, looking bored and disdainful, hands up against Encke’s chest like he thought he was going to push away from them.  But Encke and James were taller and stronger, Keeler pinned between them._

_“I told you,” Keeler snapped, trying to pull away again, “I don’t have time for this, I have to be in central early tomorrow.”  Like he hadn’t been the one to beg for this, eyeing up every other fighter in the corridors, practically begging to get fucked every time he showed up to training looking for reassignments for the other navigators._

_Encke’s hand tightened in his navigator’s hair, keeping him in place.  “Keeler.  We talked about this,” he murmured, lips brushing the pretty lieutenant’s ear, and James felt Keeler’s back go stiff, glancing between the two of them._

_Keeler closed his eyes, taking a breath as Encke started to undo the buttons of his clean white uniform, easing back against James.  Kept his eyes closed as he turned to brush a cool, paper dry kiss against James’ cheek, Encke chuckling as he started to push Keeler’s jacket off him._

_The pretty little navigator shuddered between them, trapped._

* * *

James sat up drenched in sweat, shivering with the sick knot in his stomach.  Just fell asleep on the couch waiting for Keeler, books spilled to the floor, all the homework he should have been doing instead of waiting to go play cards with Cain and Abel, banality and nightmares.  It wasn’t real, he’d never served under that asshole Laius and never met Keeler until his reassignment, but it had felt real, the same kind of mixed want and revulsion as when he’d first seen the photos of Keeler, but not able to stop it, painfully hard from it and sick with himself over it.

Keeler had told it calmly, explaining what he did and didn’t want when Porthos came to stay the weekend, what he was anxious about and why, needing to see both of them, to be in control of how fast things went, no one pulling his hair, no trapping him between them.  Keeler told it like he told the story of being in a car accident when he was younger—just something that had happened, that he wasn’t really interested in doing again.

It had never actually happened, Keeler said, Laius hadn’t found any other fighter who would actually go through with it when it really came down to it, but that hadn’t stopped Laius from trying.

Didn’t stop James from thinking about it either, about Keeler being pushed into it, about Fifty being pushed into the same, and by James.  Didn’t stop him from thinking about Fifty and Keeler sharing the same resigned, scared, resentful look.

He pushed that thought away guiltily at the sound of Keeler’s key in the lock, shaking himself, shaking away the last of the dream.  Or trying to.

Keeler dropped his briefcase at the front door, already starting to strip out of his uniform before the door was fully closed, late and in a rush to get to drinks.  “Where the fuck have you been?” James demanded, standing as Keeler unbuttoned his coat.  Pissed with himself for thinking about Keeler like that, pissed with Keeler for being late, trying to push away the awful frightening vulnerability Keeler had given him with anger, which was safer, less confusing, easier.

“I had paperwork to finish,” Keeler shrugged, stripping out of his shirt as he crossed the living room, brushing past James without looking at him.  “Cook wants it in on Monday and Abel just left it—“

James caught him by the wrist, making Keeler stop to look at him, making the real Keeler look at him.  Wanted to wrap an arm around Keeler and just hold him there, stroke his hair and make sure he was alright, but thought better of it when Keeler stiffened, mouth pressed thin and eyes on his wrist where James held him.

“Do not put your hands on me like that,” Keeler said, finally looking at him flat and cold, jaw set and eyes dead like the first few weeks they’d been together.  James ground his jaw, half wanting to shake Keeler and make him stop assuming the worst, always the worst after all this time, hating them both for his own guilty nightmares.

James took a deep breath and let it out, let Keeler’s hand go.  Just needed Keeler there with him, too chickenshit to admit he had nightmares of things Keeler had dealt with for years, fucking it up with thinking too much like a fighter.

Keeler took his own deep breaths, some of the coldness easing out of him, but not much.  “Good,” he said finally.  “I’m going to take a shower, and then we’ll go.”

“We’re late already—“

“I don’t remember you caring whether we were late for anything else,” Keeler said airly.  “I’ll be out in fifteen minutes, they’ll wait.”  James didn’t say anything when Keeler was out of the shower at precisely seven minutes and ready to leave ten minutes after he walked in the door.  Kept his damn mouth shut on the drive over there, tentatively putting his hand on Keeler’s knee and trying not to be pissed off when Keeler shrugged away from him.


	6. Encke

They sat out on the balcony at Cain and Abel’s place, mild summer night with beer and a game of hearts.  Keeler made a little disappointed noise when they got there and Abel said the baby was already asleep, hinting and hinting until Abel let him tiptoe in to see her sleeping.  Left James sitting there on the balcony with Fifty, looking sullen and glaring out over the balcony.

James sighed, kicking his feet up on Keeler’s chair, trying to not roll his eyes.  Fifty had been pouting since following James into the bathroom a couple weeks ago at the bar, all over him and on his knees before James knew what was happening, getting pissy when James finally walked out and left Fifty there, not interested in Fifty’s whoring neediness.  As if it had been James’ idea in the first place, any of it.

They sat in awkward silence, Cain handing over a beer after a while.  Something new and fancy, nothing like what they used to drink, stupid and young, when Fifty had been such a cute, cheap drunk.  When he’d been skinny and breakable and perfect, instead of surly, broken and bitter.

“Good beer,” James said, because there wasn’t anything he missed from back then, not when he had everything he wanted now, Keeler fussing over the baby in the other room.

Fifty grunted, not quite looking at him.  “Yeah, Eth—Abel picked it out.”  Keeler and Abel finally showed up then, chattering something about the baby and carrying wine glasses and two bottles of riesling.  “Fuck, princess, nobody wants that,” Fifty snapped as Abel set down the bottles and fished a wine key out of his pocket.  “Go back in the house and get some more beers, not your pansy white wine.”

“You liked it fine last time,” Abel said evenly, and if James had known him better, he might have thought the slight purse of Abel’s lips was a frown, tugging at the shadow of a scar Fifty had given him.  Fifty just glared off the balcony as Keeler and Abel poured wine and settled into their chairs, the silence strained.

“Smoke?” James asked Fifty, trying to make it less awkward.

“He’s quitting,” Abel cut in as Cain reached for a cigarette, making it more awkward.  “You’re quitting, we talked about this,” Abel hissed in Cain’s ear.  Cain ground his jaw and dropped his hand, not meeting James’ eye, and he never really realized how serious Abel was for Cain until then.  Cain was pissed about someone being there to see it, not about being told he couldn’t smoke, and James groped around for something to say to make it less awkward for Fifty.

“Keeler’s always on me to quit,” he tried.  “Too hard.  Tried a couple months ago, couldn’t manage it.”

“Yeah?” Cain asked, glancing between James and Keeler.

Keeler rolled his eyes, but James just pushed on with it, looking for anything to make it less awkward with Fifty.  “Yeah, tough habit, always easiest to hang on to the worst ones,” he said.  “You’ll probably manage it fine, you always were a stubborn little shit.”

Cain just snorted at that, hooking an arm around Abel’s shoulders and leaning into him, mostly ignoring James.  James tucked his cigarettes away, finishing his beer and sipping his wine, ignoring the way Cain or Fifty or Sacha glanced at him while pretending to be intent on Abel.  Bad news, that look was just bad fucking news and James should have had the good sense to recognize it the first time, when they ended up fucking in the bathroom, but at least he recognized it this time.

Fifty was too needy, looking for approval even though James had never been interested in anything besides fucking the dumb little shit.

The first two bottles of wine went too fast, easy small talk about nothing and the baby and more nothing as the sun set, the wine too sweet and disappearing faster for it.  He should have known to just keep his mouth shut after a beer and half a bottle of wine, but after the initial tenseness everything seemed mellowed out, Fifty making an effort to not be so sullen, and James said it even though he should have known better.

“Morgan said to say hello,” James said, just small talk about nothing and the baby and more nothing, passing time while Abel stepped into the house to get a pack of cards.  “Said the baby looks like you.”

Fifty just grunted, didn’t say anything, but James thought he caught just the flicker of a smile, pushed away before it was real, with a little sideways glance hoping no one had caught him, looking for a smack on the back of the head for thinking anything.

“Who’s Morgan?” Keeler asked, when Cain didn’t say anything.

“My mother,” James said, and that was when he knew he should have kept his mouth shut, because there was too much that Fifty knew and Keeler didn’t.

“I thought—I thought you said your parents were dead?” Keeler said.  Looked beseechingly from James to Cain.

Morgan didn’t even know he was living with anyone yet, he’d been trying to avoid her questions of how serious it was, didn’t want to think about it with Keeler still fucking Porthos and dating women on the side, so every time he called her he took the coward’s way out and just made small talk about university and Fifty’s new baby.  Easier to talk about someone else’s baby than deal with her asking if he’d ever have any.

James scowled, looking for a good reason to have avoided this with Keeler until now.  Still hadn’t told him why Noodles had a J scrawled across his belly, why Noodles had gotten named that in the first place, why he didn’t want Keeler in that part of his life, the real part.  “Morgan’s my foster—adopted mother.  Lives out on the edges of the old colony.”

Keeler leaned into James, turning away from Cain.  “You never told me that,” he hissed.  Maybe he was trying not to make a scene of it, maybe he was pissed about it, maybe a lot of things.

“Wonder what else he never told you about,” Cain murmured, sipping his beer.

“Shut your mouth, Fifty,” James snapped before he thought better of it.

“Don’t talk to him like that—“ Keeler started, cut off by Cain’s snarl.

“I don’t need your fucking help, navigator,” Fifty growled, Keeler shutting his mouth with a click, glaring at both of them.

Abel picked either the best or worst moment possible to step back out on the balcony, holding another bottle of wine and a pack of cards.  “Who wants to deal first?” he asked brightly.

* * *

They played hearts, fucking perfect, Keeler and James paired against Abel and Fifty, only way it could have been worse was if they’d been paired any other way.  At least they had the good sense not to put money on it, Keeler and James taking most hands thanks to Keeler, and James was apparently too dumb to figure out why until he finally got sick of Fifty’s pouting and glaring across the table at Keeler.

“Reliant, what the _fuck_ is your problem with Keeler tonight?” James demanded at the end of a hand, tossing his cards down on the table.  Abel fluttered to catch the cards, Keeler looking smug.

“He’s a fucking _cheat_ , that’s what,” Cain spat finally, slamming his beer down.  “Your b—your navigator’s been counting cards, Eight.”

James ground his teeth, glancing at Keeler,   “Have you?” he asked carefully.

Keeler shrugged.  “It’s only cheating if you get caught.  The game’s too boring without it anyway.”

Fifty shot Keeler a dirty look, grinding his jaw as he turned to glare at Abel.  Grabbed the pretty little thing by the arm, too hard, turning them away to press his mouth to Abel’s ear.  “Fuck, Abel, why weren’t you doing that?” Fifty hissed.

“I was!” Abel protested.  “Keeler’s just better at it.”

James ignored them, focused on Keeler as Abel cleared the cards away.  Put a hand on Keeler’s arm, didn’t grab him, just touched fingertips to Keeler’s elbow until he had to look at James.  “Don’t do that,” James said slowly, quietly, trying not to make a fight of it in front of Fifty and his navigator.

“We were winning,” Keeler said, mouth pressed thin as he fiddled with his wine glass to avoid Encke’s eyes.

“I don’t care.  It’s not fair.”  James let that hang there, waiting.  Keeler just frowned in silence, wouldn’t say anything else.  Probably a fight when they got home, but that was already waiting for them anyway.

Abel excused himself to the kitchen then, going to put the cards away, get more wine, get away from the strained awkwardness hanging between this horrible fucking idea of a Friday night.

“So are you doing anything with yourself yet, Cain?  Or still just staying home with the baby?” Keeler asked.  Polite on the edge of snide, James knew that tone from their first few weeks together.  Provoking, looking for a reaction, trying to start a fight without looking like it.  Cain didn’t say anything, slouching in his chair and sullenly drinking his beer, glass of wine untouched.  “Encke’s enrolled at the university, he’s taking courses on literature _and_ botany this fall,” Keeler said, taking a sip of his wine.

“You should think about it,” James said, catching Cain’s sideways glare at Keeler, jealous or disdainful or something, James never could tell with him, even less now than before.  “GI Bill covers it.”

“Yeah,” Cain said, knocking back the last of his beer.  “Yeah, that’d be real sweet, we could have a study group and you could carry my bag to class, just like we used to.  Start a fucking book club.”

“Fif—Cain—“  Sacha gave him a disgusted look and pushed himself up, going after Abel.

“Princess, what the fuck is taking you so long?” he snarled, and James and Keeler gave each other a look as Cain and Abel argued in hushed tones just inside the kitchen.

“Someone’s in a mood tonight,” Keeler said, sipping his wine.

“Hector, just leave it.”

Keeler shrugged, mouth pressed thin.  “He could stand to be a little polite, is all—“

“I _said_ leave it.  Just stay out of it, you don’t know how things are.”

Keeler sighed huffily at that, glaring away.  Wouldn’t say anything to anyone but Abel for the rest of the night, frowning and taking delicate sips of his wine any time James said something to Cain, until finally it was late enough that they could leave.

* * *

It hung between them on the drive home, Keeler driving in tense silence as James hung a cigarette out the window, wondering what he was going to get his ass chewed out for first.

Didn’t have to wait very long, Keeler turning on him as soon as the door clicked shut behind them.  “I just don’t understand why you have to snap at me all the time like that.  And in front of them.”  Keeler breezed away, tossing his jacket on the floor, kicking his shoes off as he stalked back to their bedroom, the big airy room that gave Encke vertigo if he stood too close to the windows, perfectly safe and terrifying at the same time, like Keeler, like this whole mess.

“Keeler, you don’t know how things are, I’m just trying to—“

Keeler cut him off, wouldn’t even come out to the living room to fight, retreating to the bedroom, the high ground, the top bunk to make his accusations.  “If you tried half so hard to be nice to _me_ as you did to _him_ —“

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”  James shrugged out of his own jacket slowly, carefully, angry with Keeler, with Fifty, with himself, trying to keep hold of the situation.  

“Maybe I would if you told me _anything_ —“

“You’re being ridiculous,” James snapped, losing his temper.  Keeler jumped to conclusions from the very start, and whatever had them both wound up wouldn’t be made any better by fighting around it.  James took deep breaths, trying to let it go.  “I’m sleeping on the couch,” he said finally.

“James, I—I didn’t mean—I’m sorry,” Keeler said, all the anger gone out of him and sounding so defeated it stabbed James right in the heart, making him stop and look back, at Keeler standing in the bedroom door, Keeler standing there barefoot with his hair unbraided, vulnerable in ways James had never thought he would be.  Keeler twisted his hands together, mouth pressed thin.  “I just—I just wish, sometimes, you looked at me like you look at him.”

James took a breath, and then another, heart racing with wondering what Keeler thought he’d seen.  “No, you don’t, baby,” he said, crossing the room in two steps to fold Keeler into his arms, skinny and breakable and perfect.


	7. Keeler and Encke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Strong trigger warning for this chapter.

Hector almost got punched the first time he tried it.  Two weeks after moving in together—if you could call it that, after living in a tiny shoebox of a room together aboard ship for more than a year—he’d brushed fingers against the palm of Encke’s hand while walking down the baking aisle of the grocery store.  Encke turned on him, face hard and dark, startling Hector back a step and making him fumble the jar of kimchi he’d gone looking for.  The look slid away almost immediately, as soon as Encke realized it was him and not some stranger, but it had scared Hector off trying again for another week.

It was weirdly formal, after everything else, after sharing a bed and a ship for more than a year, but they’d never done it before.  The few leaves they’d been on together were about projecting a proper appearance to the locals and leading the enlisted men by example, which meant uniforms and no untoward conduct in public, even if there were rumors of Bering and Cook leaning into one another at an upscale bar and disappearing to Cook’s hotel room together.  Junior officers weren’t accorded the same willful blindness, so in public Keeler and Encke were friends, and nothing more, even if in private Hector and James were everything.

So for that first year they just didn’t do things like hold hands, except as quick, illicit, stolen things under the table at briefings, or the briefest touch before climbing in the ship.

Doing it in public—almost worse than kissing in public, which Hector knew Encke would never, ever consent to—should have made it more real, should have made them more real, but it just underlined all the distance lingering between them after all that time, Encke’s hand folded over Hector’s without fingers interlaced, like he was carrying a book or a bag of groceries.  Their shoulders and arms didn’t touch, their hands the only point of contact as they walked out for takeout together, as if Copernicus were still waiting around the corner to write them up for fraternization.

For all his warmth and softness at home, the public acknowledgement of holding hands was a formality for Encke, or at least felt like it, and when Hector was being honest with himself, the dry formality of it was all he could think of when he walked Ramona or Melody or Lucinda back to her apartment.  Encke was marking time with him, but not getting too attached, because Hector was damaged goods and he’d never been what Encke was looking for.  

Encke stayed out of obligation, Hector thought, out of a sense of duty, trying to make up for what had begun between them as an awkward attempt at a truce.  Hector thought that was fine at first, a way of keeping things under control, both of them under stress and needing things, and it was better, Hector thought, to have it under control rather than waiting for things to snap again.  

Hector just hadn’t anticipated getting so attached, was all. 

Encke was kind, and he was considerate, but he wasn’t in love and they both knew it, as much as Hector hoped Encke would say it back just once.  But he never did, so Hector put a brave face on it and asked out beautiful women, who didn’t know he was damaged goods, who didn’t look at him with a little pity at the edge of every expression.

Encke didn’t really know how he looked, Hector thought.  Didn’t know how hard he looked, when he wasn’t putting the effort into being kind, how distant and unreachable, didn’t know how beautiful he was when Hector coaxed that little sideways half smile out of him.  Nothing like the broad, open happiness he wore in those photos with Cain when they’d been younger together.  

He’d spent so much time learning to be a fighter, to be an officer, that he’d forgotten how to just be James.  Cain had gotten all of that, and left only the harder, older Encke for Hector.  It didn’t matter so much that they’d slept together, that they’d slipped off together to leave Hector and Abel awkwardly alone at the bar because Hector thought Abel knew and ended up having to explain when he’d made the mistake of saying something about it.  It didn’t matter so much that there was something still between Encke and Cain, but it mattered that it was something Hector would never have, that Cain was allowed into parts of Encke’s life that Hector was pushed out of, that Encke was so clearly ashamed of him that he couldn’t bring himself to even mention Hector to his mother.

It didn’t matter so much, except for times like these, when they walked from the train station to the hotel with Encke’s arm a solid, comforting weight across his shoulders, their one duffel bag in Encke’s other hand, easy and perfect and confusing.  Hector wondered why he stayed, sometimes, why bother with it all, but then there were times like these, when Encke put his harder self aside for a while and was just James, playful and boyish with flowered tea towels and cartoon printed sheets, when Hector didn’t feel like damaged goods and just felt complete.

They got in late that evening, walking from the train station to the hotel in the light fog, their first real vacation together, not just a shore leave with invisible tensions.  Encke was more at ease than Hector had ever seen him, slow and warm when he tugged Hector into the shower later, hands going soft under the hot water and fingertips combing through the wet hair plastered to Hector’s shoulders.

Hector let himself be nudged to bed after, boneless and breathless when Encke lay back and tugged Hector over him, broad hands on Hector’s thighs to drag his hips up and suck his cock, so slow and perfect that Hector could only lay his head on Encke’s thigh and moan, making an effort now and then to catch the tip of Encke’s hard, thick cock, distracted every time with Encke’s fingers teasing the back of his thighs.

It didn’t matter so much, not then, not with just the two of them and Hector shuddering with his face pressed to Encke’s broad thigh trying to bite back a moan, because Encke was kind, and considerate, and if it wasn’t love, it was at least something close enough, and maybe it was all that Hector would get from anyone anyway, charity the best to be expected for damaged goods.  He’d never been what Encke wanted, not so strong and undamaged as Cain, but he tried, and maybe that was enough.  

Encke wouldn’t have stayed so long if it wasn’t something, and if it wasn’t love, it didn’t matter so much if it was close enough.

* * *

Hector found him on the balcony the next morning, reading the news on his tablet, beautiful with the confused, scandalized look he gave Hector as he stepped out, naked except for one of Encke’s soft flannel shirts, which quickly fell away.

“Keeler, what if someone sees—“ Encke protested, barely, as Hector straddled him and smiled, because no one would see, and Hector didn’t care if they did, out on the top floor of the hotel, away from other buildings.  He cupped Encke’s face in his hands to kiss, sliding his shirt up and off him, teasing Encke’s dark nipples to hardness as Encke cupped his ass and moaned into the kiss.  His moan came short as Hector slipped away from him, kneeling to suck Encke’s cock and show him how to hold Hector’s hair back without yanking, Encke almost laughably serious with the responsibility as Hector rolled his tongue over the tip of Encke’s cock and watched his face.

Hector tugged Encke out of his chair then, shoving him to lie back on the cool plank floor of the balcony with just his discarded clothes for padding, not caring who saw in the open air because sex and affection were all he wanted from this vacation, Encke selfishly all to himself for once.

Encke fucked him soft and slow, watching with short breath as Hector rode his cock and stroked his own.  Encke’s patient, deliberate facade broke just a little, trying to keep his breathing even and quiet out in the open air as Hector steadied himself with one hand on Encke’s chest and the other on his own cock, leaning down to look into Encke’s eyes as Hector made him come, every shudder and gasp he made pushing Hector closer until Encke finally tugged him up and finished him by sucking Hector’s cock.  Encke’s warm mouth and rough hands pushed him over, blunt fingers digging into the muscles of his thighs as Encke swallowed around him.  Kissed his thighs and bony pelvis hard enough to bruise as he shuddered with the after shocks of it, hard enough to let Hector pretend that they were permanent, or at least as permanent as the bruises, until Encke tugged him back down to lay across his broad, warm chest.

“I love you so much,” Hector murmured into Encke’s neck as they fell asleep, Hector draped over him in the warm sunshine.

* * *

**Encke**

_Keeler leaned over him, skinny and breakable and perfect, face hidden by the soft fall of his hair.  Keeler made tiny movements, short and sharp and precise, breath under perfect, silent control.  Everything about Keeler was perfect, silent control, a little clockwork navigator and all Encke’s, delicate enough to snap in two and strong enough to take hard, bruising fucks, pushed up against the wall and gasping for more._

_He gathered Keeler’s hair up into his hands, pulling it back from his face, pulling Keeler’s tear streaked face up into the light.  Wiped a thumb across Keeler’s damp face, putting a hand back on his ass to keep him going.  Short and sharp, Keeler’s hard cock bouncing in time with his thrusts.  “What’s the matter, baby?” Encke asked, keeping Keeler’s face up so he had to answer, couldn’t hide his face in his arms like always._

_“It just—it hurts,” Keeler whispered, voice choked.  Swallowed._

_“It’ll get better, baby, I promise.  You love me, don’t you?” Encke asked.  Keeler hesitated for half a second, eyes squeezed shut, just enough time to swallow and cringe against Encke’s hand tightening in his hair.  “If you loved me, this wouldn’t hurt so bad,” Encke said.  “Maybe you were lying when you said—“_

_“No, I—“ Keeler choked, leaning down as much as Encke’s hand in his hair would let him.  Swallowed again when Encke held him there with a hand in his hair, fucking him slow and waiting for the answer.  “I’m sorry,” Keeler whispered finally.  “I love you.”_

* * *

James woke up gasping with Keeler on him, sticky and too hot, lying out on the balcony together.  Keeler sat up sleepily, shy and almost bashful with how naked and beautiful he was in the morning light, and James couldn’t touch him, afraid of shattering Keeler like glass.  

Keeler laughed at the marks James had left on him, bruising kisses across his thighs and a broad, pale hand mark across his ass where James’ hand had kept him from being sunburnt bright red with the rest of his back, ass and thighs, but James could barely look at it, sick with himself for leaving a mark on Keeler like that.

* * *

It should have been a relief, it should have lifted the tensions of comparing themselves against Fifty and Abel’s perfect, happy relationship, but the vacation was just a strain, forced pictures in front of landmarks, and James couldn’t quite put his finger on why until Keeler fainted in the middle of the art museum that afternoon.  Pink with the sunburn, he wavered and pushed away James’ concern until the last second, crumpling in the modern design section.  James held his hand one second, thin and paper dry, and stood alone a moment later next to Keeler’s crumpled form on the marble floor, everyone looking his way after the sharp, sick crack of Keeler’s head on the floor.

Someone tugged at him as he knelt next to Keeler, someone who knew nothing about them, about all the times in the service Keeler had done this, put on the brave front until he collapsed under the weight of it, James getting a little better at recognizing it each time. “Sir, we should just give him some room until help comes—“

“I’m his fucking husband, get the fuck away,” James snarled, cradling Keeler’s limp body.  Best word for it, no use trying to explain what else they were to each other to strangers, when they were so much more and less, but no one else needed to know that.  Encke pushed the hair back from Keeler’s cool, sweat-slicked face, trying to reassure himself that Keeler was still breathing.  Tried to will Keeler awake.

His eyes fluttered as Encke listened to the uncomfortable milling of other museum-goers, trying to get out of the way as the ambulance crew made their way through the crowd.  “I didn’t think you’d beat me to it,” Keeler mumbled, eyes half closed as the paramedics lifted him from Encke’s arms.  “I’m sorry I ruined it, it would be more romantic with rings,” Keeler said as they took him away.

It was only dehydration and sunburn and faintness, the paramedics said, Keeler’s circulation problem catching up with him.  Just needed rest and water to cure it, but as James sat in the hotel that night and carded his fingers through Keeler’s hair as he slept, he wished he knew as easy a way out of the other problem, the problem of loving someone too selfishly.


	8. Chapter 8

**Keeler**

“Oh, you’re home,” Encke said, startling Hector away from where he was putting up their vacation photos.  “You weren’t here when I got back from class, I figured you had a date.”  Encke slung his school bag down on the couch, spilling library books across it.  He came to wrap an arm around Hector’s waist, mouthing the skin below his ear.  “How’s Ramona?”

Hector shrugged and smiled down at the frame in his hands, suddenly sheepish despite himself.  “She’s good, seeing a doctor now.  Sounds like they have a nice time together.”

“Oh,” Encke said, hesitated.  Sorry, baby.”  Hector just shrugged.  “You still seeing Melanie, Melody—the one with the pretty hair that wanted to stay over?”

Hector set the frame down, twisting in Encke’s arms to face him and kiss.  He tasted like coffee, the bad, burnt kind the student union sold, and Hector wished they had met somewhere else, gone to school together or just met in a bar, but of course they never would have met if Hector hadn’t picked Encke’s file out of a short list as the least frightening of bad options.  And who knows who they would have been if they hadn’t met the way they had, finding each other after Laius and Cain.  It could have been different, and there was a part of Hector that didn’t regret all the rest if it meant Encke kissing him soft and slow like that.

“I’m not really—I’m not seeing anyone else right now,” Hector said finally, shy enough with saying it that he had to hide his face against Encke’s chest.  “I, um, I was thinking about calling Porthos and telling him that—that we’d have to cancel this weekend.”  Encke was kind, and he was considerate, and if they weren’t quite in love, then it was something close enough to it that it made Hector jittery and unsure, wanting so badly for this to be permanent.  For all that Encke talked, for all that he had opened up the longer they’d been together, Hector thought that after all this time he didn’t know James well at all, and that maybe, just maybe, there were still things James was afraid of, unsure of, just as much as Hector was.

“Only if you want to, baby,” Encke murmured finally.  “I don’t mind if you still want to go through with it, Porthos is good to you.”

Hector smiled and pulled Encke back to the kitchen, putting that decision off for another time.  They’d already invited him; the call could wait a night.  “So you didn’t have a date tonight?” Encke asked as they started dinner.  Hector just shook his head, since that could wait too, all Encke needed to hear about for then was the other errands, picking up frames and having the photos printed.  Hector would tell him when the test results came back, the second set he’d had to make a doctor’s appointment for, that he didn’t think he’d need to worry about until things started looking permanent between them.

* * *

**Encke**

Keeler never did call, and if he was being honest with himself, James didn’t really mind, half amused and half turned on by Keeler’s flustered preparations for the weekend, excited and nervous in a more innocent way than James had ever seen him, especially considering the situation.  Porthos wasn’t so bad, quiet and serious when James took his bag and put it in the bedroom without comment.

Not James’ type, not really, but the way Keeler blushed and twisted between them on the couch made up for it, one of Keeler’s legs draped over James’ knee and Keeler leaning against Porthos as they watched the movie.  Keeler got more and more horizontal the further into the movie they got, the further into the two bottles of wine they got, Porthos lazily carding his fingers through Keeler’s hair, slow and sweet, and if Porthos wasn’t James’ type, he could see why Porthos was Keeler’s type.  Mellow and solid, Keeler looked good draped between them, the center of attention on his own terms for once, coddled and catered to.  

Porthos did all of Keeler’s jumping during dinner and the movie, getting up and down to refill Keeler’s drink, chasing him out of the kitchen to do the dishes alone.  James wouldn’t mind having him stay the weekend more often, if it was going to be like having a houseboy to do all the chores, even if it meant Keeler laying tucked into the curve of Porthos’ arm later.

James rubbed Keeler’s feet, resting a hand on his skinny thigh as Porthos shifted, laying out on the couch with Keeler draped back against him, the three of them tangled up with too many knees.

Keeler slept through the rest of the movie, softly drunk and curled between them, sighing when James finally picked him up to carry him to bed.  Porthos followed quietly, padding down the hallway in his socks and coming up behind James as he fumbled to try to hit the lightswitch with his elbow and not drop Keeler, Porthos warm and close and his hand grazing James’ back as he got the light.  Keeler stirred just enough to smile sleepily over James’ shoulder at Porthos as they poured him into bed, just awake enough to be a nuisance as they got him undressed, a little china doll in the middle of that big damn stupid bed, which didn’t seem quite big enough now that it was James and Porthos playing house with Keeler in the middle.

Porthos sat lightly on the edge of the bed, glancing between Keeler curled sleeping on his side already, and James hovering.  They shared a glance and a shrug, and if it was awkward, at least they both knew it, and brushed their teeth together in mostly companionable silence.  Porthos curled against Keeler on one side as James pressed against him on the other, the three of them huddled in the middle of the bed.

Keeler twisted between them, making James and Porthos’ hands brush awkwardly as they both tried to arrange themselves around him, but Keeler just gave them each a peck on the cheek and settled back where he’d been, head on James’s chest and ass pressed back against Porthos.  And when later Porthos’ hand draped over Keeler’s skinny back to lay on James’s chest, it wasn’t quite the same as having Keeler’s thin, cold hand wrapped in his, but it was comforting to know that Keeler was safe between them.  So James let Porthos’ hand lay there, and put his hand over it, warm and solid on his chest, wrapping Keeler between them.

* * *

James was up first like always, Keeler pressed warm and sharp against his back.  James gave half a thought to waking him up, Keeler stretching and curling tighter against him as James shifted, Keeler sleepily pressing his hard cock up against the back of James’ thigh and throwing an arm over his chest to keep him close.  

But they’d all had plenty to drink the night before and would be better for some coffee and breakfast, so James nudged Keeler back to snuggle against Porthos’ broad chest.  They looked good together like that, cheeks flushed and legs tangled together in the center of the bed, and James thought this all wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

He left them together like that, humming to himself as he threw together pancake mix and turned on the coffee maker.  Decided he could do this more often, with Porthos to make dinner and him to make breakfast, coddling Keeler between them.

James stacked the pancakes one by one as they finished, soft and gold and perfect, almost meditative.  Simple and easy even with Keeler sleeping curled against someone else in the other room.

Porthos stumbled out of the bedroom after a while, first to the bathroom and then to the kitchen, looking a little rumpled in pajama bottoms and a t-shirt that looked a little small for him, not that it didn’t look good on him.  Came to stand in the kitchen, rubbing sleep out of his eyes.

“How’s the hangover?” James asked, turning back to the stove, pouring a cup of coffee with his free hand.  Pointed Porthos at the creamer on the counter, not sure if he took it as sweet as Keeler and not about to ask, either.

“Not too bad,” Porthos mumbled, coming to lean on the counter next to James, a little too close, sipping his coffee black with no creamer.  “Keeler’s not going to feel great when he wakes up, though.”

“He’ll be fine,” James shrugged.  “He’s slept off worse, he drank me under the table last time we were on leave and he still got us back to the ship for a full shift the next morning.”

Porthos laughed quietly into his coffee, looking like he regretted it when he stopped to rub his eyes.  “I had such a fucking crush on him when we were in school together, he was always the instructors’ favorite.  He was a lot different when we were younger.”

James let that hang there, not sure what to say and not sure he wanted to know _how_ , since they both knew _why_.  He thought about being jealous, of Porthos knowing Keeler before, half wondering what it would have been like to meet Keeler somewhere else, in school together, or what it would have been like to be each others’ first flying partners, but he put the thought away, since James already had all the parts of Keeler that Hector wanted to give.

“He talks about you all the time, you know,” Porthos said, setting down his coffee cup.  Looked James up and down.  “Said that that hardass front you put on is just an act, that you’re really just a soft touch.  I told him it was probably only for him.”

“Might be,” James said, before he fully realized Porthos had taken a step closer, just as James took the last pancake off the skillet.  “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Keeler said we should get to know each other a little better,” Porthos smiled, pulling a condom from the pocket of his pajama bottoms.  Raised an eyebrow.

James clicked the stove burner off, looking Porthos up and down as he folded a clean tea towel over the plate of pancakes.  Looked from the door of the bedroom and back to Porthos.  Better to wait until Keeler was up, James thought, but they’d agreed to this in the first place and better to get the awkwardness of the first time over sooner or later, and Keeler would invite himself if he woke up in the mean time.

“So were you going to fuck me or not?” Porthos demanded when James hesitated too long, taking a step to close the distance between them and pin James up against the kitchen counter.  Probably thought that was a pretty smart move; Porthos had the look of someone who thought he’d always won all his fights.  But James bet that for as mean as he tried to look, he’d gotten by mostly on size and intimidation with the other navigators, and never really had to swing a punch when it counted.

So James swung him around, taking Porthos’ wrist in one hand and shoulder in the other, just to show him who was in charge, and shoved him down over the kitchen table.  And Keeler had always said Porthos got off on being shoved around anyway.  “Little pushy for someone asking to get fucked by a stranger, don’t you think?” James asked, leaning down to kiss the back of his neck, gently, to let Porthos know this was part of the game.

“The fuck do you want, a virgin?” Porthos snarled, but with the edge of a smile in it, twisting to be kissed, and his mouth was just as hot and pushy as the rest of him.  “Get me the phone and I’ll have Phobos fake it for you.”

James laughed despite himself, that little snot Phobos and his fake pounding on the walls and moaning the last thing he wanted, even if Keeler had ever had the bad sense to ask for it.  Porthos at least had a sense of humor, and James yanked his head back by the hair to breath against his ear.  Same stupid mohawk as in the service, and James wondered for the first time if Keeler had talked Porthos into it too.  Wondered if that was part of the attraction of this weekend for Keeler, both of them together a mirrored set.  “If you were a fighter,” James murmured against Porthos’ ear, “I’d have whipped your ass into shape a long time ago.  Keeler always was too soft on you pretty navigators.”

“Yeah?” Porthos asked, half a sneer and half a gasp.  “Why don’t you try it now?”

James wasn’t sure which of them did what, too many hands and nothing like Keeler’s slow, deliberate undressing, Porthos shoving out of his own clothes and James out of his until there was the condom in James’ hand and Porthos twisting back to bite and kiss.

Porthos shuddered and twisted as James leaned over him and pushed into him, solid and sturdy where Keeler and Fifty had always been delicate and breakable.  “That the best you got?” Porthos sneered over his shoulder as James fucked him slowly.  “Fucking spank me already.”

James did, and again harder, for every time he’d wanted to do it to Keeler, and for every time he’d thought about Keeler and Porthos together, and Porthos arched his back into it, leaning down with one arm on the kitchen table and stroking his cock fast as James fucked him faster.  

If he wasn’t really James’ type, James could see why he was Keeler’s type, all hard, tight muscle begging to be fucked.  James dug his fingers into the muscles of Porthos’ thigh, holding him in place, leaning down to bite Porthos’ broad shoulder.

“Oh.  Morning, lieutenant,” Porthos said suddenly, looking up.  James followed his look to where Keeler stood in the doorway, eyes as big as saucers, cock straining hard through his pajama bottoms and looking ready to faint.

“You okay, baby?” James asked carefully, suddenly unsure, and what a time to be having second thoughts, caught fucking Porthos over the kitchen table.

“Yeah, no, I’m—I’m good,” Keeler said, sounding sort of dazed and far away.  His hands fluttered, in front of his mouth and then down, like he wasn’t sure if he should be hiding his eyes or jerking himself off.  “You should, uh—you look like you’re having a good time, I’ll just—um, I’ll just—“

“Keeler, get the fuck over here,” Porthos laughed, pushy and demanding with him in a way that James couldn’t be, but it worked, Keeler stumbling across the room to them blushing and pushing out of his pants.  

Keeler leaned against both of them, caught as James and Porthos both put an arm each around him to kiss, Keeler’s hard cock pressed to James’ thigh.  Porthos, the optimistic bastard, twisted to fish another condom from his pajamas and then tugged Keeler away, lifting him like a little rag doll to set him on the table, Porthos pushing his ass back against James demanding to be fucked again as he bent Keeler back to kiss his neck and chest.  Keeler squirmed on the cold table, reaching for James, grabbing one of his hands off Porthos’ waist to bring it up and suck his fingers.

James watched them, Keeler moaning breathily around his fingers as Porthos stroked Keeler’s hard cock and scattered little kisses across his throat, Keeler clinging for dear life to James’ hand.  He circled the tip of his tongue against the pads of James’ fingers, teasing and needy and so fucking beautiful as Porthos rolled the condom on Keeler’s straining cock.

Porthos nudged Keeler to lie back then, laying him out gorgeous and vulnerable on the table, flushed pink with his hair trailing out of its braid as Porthos slowly sucked his cock.  James went back to fucking Porthos slow, slow and steady, watching Keeler and stroking Porthos’ cock now that both his hands were busy teasing Keeler, raking up his sides and down his thighs.  

Someone moaned, and James realized after a second that it was Porthos and Keeler both, Porthos getting erratic as he got closer, getting off on being fucked and sucking off Keeler at the same time, Keeler finally opening his eyes to watch them both with a surprised, breathless look, fingers twisted in Porthos’ hair.  Porthos came first, moaning around Keeler’s cock and pushing James over with him, coming shuddery and hot with Keeler watching him and reaching to twist their fingers together.

James pulled away from Porthos just long enough to wipe his hand on one of the flowered tea towels, just long enough for Keeler to grab him back to kiss, Keeler always stronger than he looked, not so soft, delicate or breakable.  James held him as Keeler twisted his fingers back and forth through Porthos’ hair, Keeler’s back going rigid as he moaned against James’ mouth and came, beautiful and perfect.

Keeler lay breathless on the table for a moment, and as Porthos pulled away to clean up the condoms and scattered clothes, James wondered if Keeler had changed his mind about this threesome thing.  But then Keeler put an arm around James’ neck and staggered against him as James pulled him up to stand, shaky kneed and hiding his shy smile against James’ bare chest.  

If James had any other doubts, Keeler settled into his lap once they were dressed again, eating breakfast on the apparently very sturdy kitchen table with Porthos jumping up to refill James’ coffee and Keeler petting both of them shyly every chance he got.  Keeler practically suggested another round, hinting after they’d eaten that one or both of them were invited to join him in the shower, but he just laughed brightly and gave them both a kiss when they shared a tired look.

“So when’s the wedding?” Porthos asked, watching Keeler disappear to the shower.

James stopped at the sink, setting the plates down carefully.  “What wedding?”

“You and Hector, who the fuck else?”  Porthos took a sip of his coffee, watching James over the rim of the cup.  “Remy—Phobos—heard it from Deimos.  Said Keeler told Abel’d you’d proposed.  Did you know he’s still getting fucked by Deimos and that psycho Cain both?  Abel, I mean, not Keeler.”  Another sip of coffee when James wouldn’t say anything.  “The news got Remy nagging my ear off again, he wants to make sure we tie the knot before you two do, so it’d be nice to know a date.”

“You’d have to ask Keeler,” James said, and turned his attention back to cleaning up the dishes.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter runs concurrent with [chapter three of After](http://archiveofourown.org/works/534165/chapters/950915). Warnings for noncon and some oblique mentions of mpreg. I sorry D:

**Keeler**

Encke called him at work, telling him to come straight home, sounding mysterious, the edge of a smile in his voice, sounding so pleased with himself that Hector nearly spilled his papers at Cook’s feet at the end of the day, earning himself a hard look and a quick dismissal from the old man.  Whatever else Hector thought of Cook, his impatience and annoyance were a bonus for once, sending Hector home in a fluster a half hour early for whatever surprise Encke had thought up.

He opened the door to the smell of roses and Encke’s cooking, following it back to the kitchen.  Stood silent in the doorway for a moment, heart twisting at the sight of the flowers and Encke in an apron, domestic and perfect.

“Did I—“ Hector started, jittery and shivering with adrenaline even though he couldn’t say why, Encke half turning to smile over his shoulder.  “Did I forget something?  Is it—did I forget an anniversary?”

Encke just smiled wider and closed the distance between them in two steps, crowding him against the wall.  Hector blushed despite himself, shy as Encke brushed his hair back away from his face and scattered kisses along his jaw, overwhelming and gentle.  “Thought we’d make this our anniversary.  Or whenever you want to go to the courthouse and make it official,” Encke said, pulling back just a little, touching his forehead to Hector’s, looking him in the eye with just the edge of a question in his voice.

“I—what?”

Encke laughed and kissed him, hot and sudden, tipping Hector’s face up in his broad hands.  “Thought you’d already started planning it.  Porthos said you’d told Abel I’d proposed; I thought I’d make it official,” Encke said, combing his fingers through Hector’s hair, gentle and slow.

“I—I just told Abel about what you said—when I fainted—“ Hector stammered, flushing warmer and worried despite himself.  “I didn’t mean—we don’t have to—it was just a funny story—“

“I want to,” Encke said, all the smile gone out of his voice.  Hard and serious, discussing tactics, next moves.  “If you want to.”

Hector took one deep breath and another, steadying himself.  “You do?”  Encke was kind, and he was considerate, but Hector had convinced himself for so long that Encke only stayed out of obligation that the thought of Encke staying _forever_ out of obligation hurt worse than the thought of ending it.

“Of course I do,” Encke said slowly, kissing him again, slow and deep this time.  “Of course I do, I love you.”

“I’m sterile,” Hector blurted, ruining it.  Turned his face away from Encke’s frown, ruining it because he was damaged goods and never what Encke had wanted in the first place, never what Hector had wanted to be himself.

Encke’s hands just tightened on his shoulders, silent and hard, and Hector could feel Encke frowning down at him.

“I got—I went to a fertility clinic.”  Hector let himself be led to the table then, Encke hands gentle as he pushed Hector into a chair.  “The engine—command said the radiation might be a problem, but after Cain and Abel had Natasha, I thought maybe—but the clinic said—said I can’t.  I was thinking maybe, you might,” Hector stammered to the table top, risking a glance at Encke, sure Encke was starting to regret proposing, staying, trying to make anything between them.  “We could ask Porthos, or Abel—“

“No.  Fuck no.”  Hard, flat, his face closed.

“Or we could get a donor,” Hector pushed on, desperate.  “I’d never be able to carry, it would have to be—“

Encke just shook his head.  “No.  It’s not up for discussion.  I’m not doing it.”

Hector swallowed, crossing his arms over his chest.  Looked down at the table.  “Oh,” was all he managed, feeling small and pathetic.  Wondering if this was it, when Encke’s silence stretched out too long, and Hector wondered which of them would say it first, that this had all been a mistake from the beginning, that there had never really been anything between them.

“Look—“ Encke sighed after a minute, and Hector cringed.  “We can always adopt.  Or get a cat.  We’ll work something out.”

“A cat?” Hector asked.  Didn’t have the heart to say that a cat and a baby were not the same, too busy blinking tears away and trying to keep Encke from seeing.

“Yeah, or a baby, just—don’t look so down, I want you to be happy tonight.  We’ll figure out the baby part later.”

“We will?” Hector managed.  Hadn’t expected that, hadn’t expected any of it tonight, hadn’t expected any of it, desperately grateful for all of it.

“Yeah, of course.  I’d do anything for you, Keeler.  I’d do anything with you.”  _Just not that_ , Encke didn’t say.  He got up with a brush of fingers across Hector’s shoulders and a kiss briefly pressed to his hair, serving dinner to distract them both from the awkwardness of what they’d gotten themselves into.

“What changed your mind about me, baby?” Encke said later, changing the subject after they’d cleared the dishes, trying for romance, maybe, but Hector couldn’t see it, not then.  He watched Encke drink his beer slowly, giving Hector a thoughtful look.  “I was such a fucking asshole to you those first couple of weeks.”

Hector shrugged and tried to avoid it, but he’d never been good at avoiding Encke’s looks, when Encke had always seen right through to the very heart of him, could tell just by a look if Hector was trying to hide something.  Hector had never been good at hiding anything anyway.  He’d mostly stopped trying when Laius and Bede had taken everything worth hiding.  “I don’t know, I just—changed my mind, was all,” Hector said.

“Yeah, but _why_?”

“You won’t like it.”  Encke just looked at him, that same hard, flat look as the other night at Cain and Ethan’s.  _Don’t do that_.  Hector twisted his hair nervously.  “I just—I was scared of you, I was scared of the new fighters, I thought, if we slept together—I thought—“

“ _What_ ,” Encke demanded.   _I heard about you_.

Hector raked a hand through his hair, curling in on himself, fumbling for the right words for it, to make it sound like something other than what it was.  Encke would never forgive him for a lie, would never forgive him for the truth.  “You seemed sweet, sometimes, I thought maybe if—maybe if we were sleeping together, that you’d be more like that all the time, that you wouldn’t be so—so—“

“You mean you were scared not to fuck me.  That’s pretty fucking romantic, Keeler.”

“I’m sorry, I told you you wouldn’t like it, it’s not like that now—James, I’m sorry—“

Encke pushed himself up from the table then, maybe angry enough to sleep on the couch again, and had his mouth half-open to say something when there was a knock at the door.  They both glanced that way, half-hesitated between whatever fight this was going to be and the possibility of letting it defuse, and Encke made the decision by going to get the door.

Hector sat alone in the kitchen for a moment, miserable, more miserable at the sound of Cain’s voice, of being reminded of how happy Abel was with him, of how happy Encke had been with him, more miserable when Encke led him back to the kitchen and let him stay.  Impossibly miserable when Abel showed up with the baby later, their happy, easy domesticity everything Hector had ever wanted, Natasha rosy-cheeked and beautiful, as if Cain had ever done anything to deserve her that Hector hadn’t, and he distracted himself with her to hide his unbearable resentment.

* * *

**Encke**

“I’m sorry,” James said when the door closed behind them, and meant it.  He couldn’t see what Keeler wanted so badly, why they had to rush into having a baby when Fifty was so clearly miserable with it, so miserable all through the pregnancy and the rest that James couldn’t ever see wanting to go through it himself.

Keeler didn’t say anything for a while, just pressed himself to James’ chest for a moment and then pulled away to change for bed in silence.

“I love you,” Keeler said when they were lying together, his head on James’ chest, and James had a flash of resentment, wishing Keeler wouldn’t say it so often because it felt like a recrimination every time, especially now that he knew why Keeler had wanted him in the first place, trying to keep the sex under control and afraid of what would happen if he didn’t.

So he kissed Keeler instead of saying anything, because that was easier and he knew how to make Keeler happy that way, failing so often at it when he said anything.  Keeler clung to him, desperate, too desperate, wanting more than James wanted to give right then.

“Keeler, they’re in the other room with the baby—“

“I can be quiet if you can,” Keeler murmured against his neck, skimming fingers down James’ arm and side, over the fabric of his boxers, going too far.

James pulled away from him fully then, sitting up.  Keeler sat up half a second later, looking hurt and confused.  “Look, just—not tonight, okay?” James said, frustrated with fucking everything.  “They’ll be gone in the morning and we’ll have all day, I promise.”

He watched Keeler take half a breath, think better of it, and then just nod.

James lay back down, annoyed with himself for letting Cain in, more annoyed to find out the little shit was trying to fuck up how good he had things with Abel and then running to James after, like there’d ever been anything between them, even more annoyed to find out that Fifty was trying to deal with his daddy issues by trying to get James to fuck him, looking for abuse, looking for it from James.

Keeler lay down behind him, tucking close.  Pressed his nose to James’ back and his hard cock to James’ ass, insistent with snaking an arm around James’ chest and stroking light fingers over his belly, down to the band of his boxers.

“I _said no_ ,” James snarled, meaner than he meant it, regretting it as soon as he half turned to see Keeler recoil and scramble back.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—I was just—“ Keeler said, skittering back away from him.  “I just wanted to cuddle,” Keeler said quietly, hunching his shoulders.

James reached for him, thought better of it when Keeler cringed from him, and took his hand back.  “Just—fuck.  Just go to sleep, Keeler,” James said, turning to lie on his side facing away from Keeler.  There’d be plenty of time to deal with it in the morning, all of it, since they were both only making it worse at the moment.

* * *

_Hector stiffened as the door opened, trying to push it down, trying to concentrate on his work.  The doctors had said to stay calm, to not overly stress himself, it was bad for his heart, but he could feel himself shaking with the adrenaline already and the new fighter had barely taken two steps into the room._

_The new Encke kicked his boots across the room, aggressive like all fighters, trying to show dominance and ownership.  Hector ignored him; he could afford to let the new fighter have his way on some things, if it meant less of a fight over others._

_“Pretty nice contraband,” Encke said, and surprised Hector when he actually recognized the scotch, more to this one than just bluster and intimidation.  Hector watched him from the safety of the top bunk as Encke stripped for the shower.  This new one was beautiful, but they were all like that, beautiful and dangerous, but maybe this one wasn’t quite so dangerous._

_Hector eased himself down from the questionable safety of the top bunk when he heard the shower click off.  He wouldn’t be able to hide up there forever, and even if they weren’t going to ever be friends, Hector could try to offer an olive branch for that morning, to meet this new Encke halfway if they were going to work together.  He tucked the bottle of scotch away safely just as Encke came back to the main room, and Hector took a deep breath, making himself make polite conversation._

_“Do you think tomorrow will go better?” he asked, edging past Encke and back to his own bunk.  Too much, being down on the floor with the new fighter, where he could tell exactly how much height and how many pounds Encke would have on him in a struggle, where he couldn’t move without being touched, fighters taking up all the space deliberately or unconsciously, it didn’t matter for how it made Hector feel, trapped with nowhere to go.  He’d made his peace offering; it didn’t mean he had to leave himself vulnerable, alone again with someone twice his size and looking to mark ownership._

_Hector didn’t move fast enough after all, grabbed by the arm and shoved back against the wall, the panic rising just as fast as the breath whooshed out of him, Encke’s hand heavy on his chest.  He thought about struggling, for half a second, thought about the knife hidden under his pillow, three feet away and miles out of reach, for all the good it had done the one time he’d tried to use it on his first Encke._

_“_ _Maybe you thought that was a pretty cute joke for the first time out,” this Encke said, “make me look like a fucking idiot, but you’re done with your little games next time we’re out.  If you pull that shit again—“_

_“Or what?” Hector demanded, shoving his hand away, shaking.  Took a deep breath to steady himself and glared up at this Encke, just like all the other ones, trying not to show fear, trying not to show exactly how frightened he was._

_“Or maybe I’ll fuck you til you learn some manners.  I heard about you, you’re only polite when you’ve got someone’s cock shutting you up—“_

_Hector kneed him in the balls, or tried to, regretting it as soon as he did, trapped and shaking too hard to think straight, twisted around and slammed face first against the wall._

_“You smug little shit—“ Encke snarled in his ear, the last thing Hector remembered hearing until the sound of his own quiet crying after, trapped in the fictitious safety of the top bunk listening to this new Encke’s quiet breathing as he slept._

* * *

James woke up to the sound of Keeler crying, the real one, not the one in his dream, though the sound was the same, hushed and secret, trying to not be heard, like Fifty in basic all those nights all those years ago.  James sat up, disoriented, trying to remember why Keeler would be crying, trying to remember when and where he was.

“I’m fine,” Keeler said as James reached to put a hand on his shoulder, Keeler’s back gone stiff and his voice gone flat.  He shrugged off James’ hand.  “I’m fine, just leave me alone,” Keeler snapped when James put his hand back, and James knew he’d made a terrible mistake for both of them.


	10. Encke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoa, this updated?? Crazy! This and the following ch were supposed to be one ch, but they ended up needing to be split and it took me longer than expected. Sorry! But the good news is that that means the next ch is mostly done and will be up in a few days.

The morning he decided on it, James woke up with Keeler draped over his chest, all sharp elbows and lean muscle, one leg thrown up over James’ waist and nose pressed to the hollow of James’ throat.

Keeler was warm in the mornings, as warm as he was cold at night, all cold sharp toes and chilled knees, but now he was sticky and too hot where he draped over James’ chest.  He stretched and hummed under James’ hands, just awake enough to make a nuisance of himself, pushing his tight round ass up into James’ hand, curling tighter so that James could feel Keeler’s hard cock throbbing against his thigh.

James let him snuggle closer, didn’t have the heart to push Keeler away just then, even if he knew it would just make everything worse later.  Let Keeler kiss and nuzzle the hollow of his throat, hard despite his better judgement with Keeler’s hand skimming over his belly and hip bone and his own hand on Keeler’s ass.

“Baby, we gotta get up soon—“ James started, but Keeler hummed against his chest and wrapped thin, bony fingers around his cock.

“We can be quick, I promise,” Keeler murmured, clingy and too desperate.  “Please.”

That did it, that was the moment James knew he’d never be able to tell Keeler no to his face, so he put a hand on Keeler’s face to bring him up to kiss, just so he wouldn’t have to hear any more of Keeler’s pleading.  Keeler was warm and too pliant, moaning greedily against James’ mouth as they kissed, Keeler’s hand as insistent on James’ cock as Keeler’s cock was against his thigh.

James pushed him to lie back, flicking the sheets back to leave Keeler sprawled out naked, skinny and breakable, flushed to the tips of his toes already with James kissing down his narrow chest, hoping to bring Keeler off quickly, without too much guilt for later.  Keeler twisted under his hands, scraping dull nails against James’ shaved scalp and the strip of hair, the reminder of all the promises he’d made Keeler.  James tried to ignore him as he swallowed Keeler deep and fast, teasing at the tip of Keeler’s cock the way that made him come fastest, trying not to wonder if this was how Fifty had felt all that time, if it was how Keeler had ever felt, just trying to get through and get it over with.

Keeler shuddered and moaned as James rolled his tongue over the hot ridge of Keeler’s cock and pressed the pads of his fingers up into him gently, and James knew he’d never understand what Fifty and Keeler had felt, because he did want this, wanted to see Keeler like this forever, moaning and shuddering under his hands, flushed with how badly he wanted to be fucked.

He made an annoyed noise as Keeler twisted away from him, reaching for the lube and condoms on the nightstand, pushing both into James’ hands.  He gave Keeler’s thigh a quick sharp bite, half pleased with how changed they were from their first time and half annoyed that it had to be now, that everything else had happened.  Jealously, selfishly, James wanted Keeler all to himself.

Keeler spread his legs, wanton and beautifully unselfconscious, arching his back into it as James pushed two and then three lubed fingers into him, spreading him open fast and a little too hard as Keeler moaned.  He lifted Keeler’s ass off the bed in both hands, pushing into him slow and easy, Keeler biting his lip as he brought his legs up over James’ shoulders, gently hooking his ankles behind James’ neck.

It was a good view, Keeler flat on his back and sucking his fingers, shivering as James curled his fingers into the hard muscle of his skinny thighs, fucking him slow and shallow.  Keeler watched him with lidded eyes, running a hand up James’ belly and chest, skipping down to his thigh and back, his fingers light and tentative.

“If you want,” Keeler breathed, “it might be nice, if—if we did like when you were with Porthos.”

“What you mean, baby?” James asked, kissing Keeler’s ankle, could barely separate all the different ways they’d both fucked Porthos that weekend.

Keeler squirmed, wouldn’t kiss until James put a hand on his cheek to keep him in place, rubbing the pad of his thumb over Keeler’s lips after.  “I liked when you were—when you spanked him, I thought—I liked it, when you were a little rougher.  I thought, maybe, you could do that to me—“

“Baby, we don’t have to do that—“

“I’d like you to,” Keeler said, blushing bright, trying to hide his face in James’ hand.  “It was—it was really hot, seeing you like that with him, I like it when you’re in charge like that.  I trust you.”

James took shallow breaths, thinking about what Keeler was asking for, and why.  Hid his thinking by kissing Keeler’s ankle again, then taking Keeler’s skinny leg in hand and scraping his teeth along the bony joint and the sole of his foot, gratified by the gasping shudder Keeler gave him.  Thought about all the times he’d wanted to fuck Keeler rough as he dug one hand into Keeler’s thigh and slapped his ass with the other, all the times in the service he’d fucked Fifty and wished he’d been Keeler.

He let Keeler drive the pace, faster and rougher than he would have done, Keeler biting his lip and thrashing, his hair spilled out radiant around him as James fucked him too fast, too rough, holding Keeler’s legs against his chest to keep him still.  Keeler came with a strangled little cry, stiffening with his back arched and something pained between a sob and a sigh, and James hated himself for thinking of Fifty as he came.

It was quick, and perfect, and every reason why they should never have been together in the first place.

* * *

He thought about waiting until Keeler was home from work, about standing there and trying to explain it to Keeler before leaving, but James knew that one word from Keeler, one devastated look, would have him staying, and James couldn’t stay, not any more, for Keeler’s own sake.

So in the end he took the coward’s way out.  

He packed a bag, called Porthos, and left Keeler a note.  Porthos listened in mostly disapproving silence, but agreed to call Keeler after work, to make sure he was alright.  And then there was just the note.

~~_Dear Keel_ —~~

_Hector_ —

_This hasn’t been working for a long time and I can’t keep doing this to you, you deserve better.  Porthos is going to call after he gets off work tonight.  I’ve taken what I’m keeping, do what you want with the rest.  There’s an envelope for Cain if he wants it._

_I’m sorry._

_Love,_

_James_

Then he took the bus to the train station, and that was it.

* * *

His phone rang just at the halfway point to his aunt’s, perfectly on time as Keeler got off work, the one time he wasn’t late coming home from work.  James closed his eyes against the half-full commuter train as he answered it, he owed Keeler that much.

“James?  Where are you?” Keeler breathed, somewhere between a demand and a plea.  “I saw your note, is everything ok—?”  Hoping against hope this was some kind of misunderstanding, he could hear it in Keeler’s voice.

“Baby, just—I meant what I wrote you, things haven’t been working with us for a long time.  I’m going to stay at my aunt’s.  Cain’s got the number if there’s an emergency, but I think we should take some time.”

He heard Keeler take a sharp breath over the phone and James put a hand over his closed eyes, could already picture Keeler’s face, and that was exactly why he couldn’t have stayed.  “Was it—was it this morning?” Keeler asked shakily.  “We don’t have to, I didn’t mean it, I don’t—we can do whatever you want—“

“Baby, that’s not it—“

“I won’t ask for anything again, I swear, just please come home—“

“ _Keeler_.  That’s not what this is about,” James snapped, even though it was, if not exactly.  “It’s this, we fight all the time, over nothing, and I don’t know how not to.  You’re just—we should never have tried to make this work in the first place.”

“But what about what I want?” Keeler demanded, his voice gone hard, trying to hide the shakiness.  “Why doesn’t that matter?  You said—you said you wanted to get married, you said—“ Keeler tripped over the last accusation, _you said you loved me_ , maybe finally realizing it just as James did, that it had been a lie.

 _You’re too broken and I don’t know how to fix you_ , James didn’t say.  Said instead, “Look, it’s almost my stop, I gotta go.  You’ll be fine.”  A lie, he knew one was as blatant a lie as the other, another hour left until the station near Morgan’s place.  He hung up before Keeler could say anything else, the recrimination hanging between them.

* * *

“Boy,” Morgan said when he’d finished explaining it, “you’re an idiot.  If you loved him, you’d be back there telling this to him.  I thought I raised you better than that.”  And that was all she’d say about it, going back to making her pie dough while James sat there at the kitchen table with his head in his hands.


	11. Keeler

That first night after Encke left, laying on Ethan and Cain’s couch, drunk and miserable and listening to them making love in the the other room, Hector swore he wouldn’t stay the night again, being miserable alone in an empty apartment that smelled like Encke infinitely better than being reminded of how happy everyone else was.

* * *

Work was there like it always had been, the last thing left that had always gotten Hector through the bad times.  His parents’ divorce when he started academy, his first Encke, and now his last Encke.  Work was a retreat, for when the rest of the world was too much.

Work was clean and uncomplicated, beautiful and precise and distant, undemanding and unfeeling.  Cleaner that way, easier, where Hector didn’t have to pretend to feel things, where he didn’t have to pretend to not feel things, where he could just be alone and not have to think about why.

* * *

Work was a refuge from all of it, right up until it wasn’t.

“Keeler, may I see you in my office for a moment?” Cook asked as Hector was leaving the office one evening.  Hector hesitated, anxious, but followed Cook back to his office, glancing over his shoulder at the empty lab as Cook closed the door behind them and waved Hector to a chair in front of his broad, empty desk.

“I understand you’ve been having some personal difficulties of late,” Cook said as he sat.  He’d no doubt heard about it either through innocent gossip from Abel, or not-so-innocent gossip from Phobos, Cook still fucking that backstabbing little sneak after all these years.  Phobos and Abel didn’t know, couldn’t know, how much it meant to Hector to hang on to what little shreds of privacy he had left, after having lost so much of his privacy so many other times.

“Has there been a problem with the quality of my work—“

“No, no, nothing of the sort,” Cook said, waving the question away.  “Call it more of a personal than professional concern,” he said.  “Having been in your position, I understand that losing your . . . fighter . . . can be quite upsetting.  It can be a very intense working partnership at times, if you take my meaning, and it’s understandable to form certain attachments, but you have to understand that those pairings aren’t meant to last more than a few years at most.”  Cook cleared his throat as Hector shifted uncomfortably, unsure he wanted this kind of fatherly advice, and from Cook of all people.

Hector said nothing in the awkwardness, hoping that if he said nothing he could leave sooner.

“Keeler—Hector, if I may—“ Cook said, and Hector stiffened, no way, no _reason_ for Cook to know his given name unless he’d heard it from Phobos or Abel, or worse, from the sealed portions of Hector’s personnel file, the section with his name, his medical records, his _psychiatric_ records.

The section with the report he’d tried to file against his first Encke, never attached to his fighter’s file, but kept in his own as a strike against him for false reporting, along with the records of medical exams for bruises, tearing, and every other visible and invisible mark left on his body by Encke and the engine project.  Hector’s hands tightened on the arms of Cook’s guest chair, his knuckles going white with anxiety and the need to get away from this situation, his stomach twisting over itself just at the sound of his own name.

Hector wondered what else Cook had seen, and when.  Everyone on the Sleipnir had seen the photos and the video; why would Cook have been any different.  Cook could have looked it up any time.

Cook just went on, either oblivious or uncaring, pulling a business card out of his desk drawer as he spoke.  “There are certain . . . needs which men in our position have, and at times like these, there’s no shame in having it attended to professionally.  I assure you they’re very discrete.”  He held the card out across the desk, where it hung in air for a moment before Hector steadied his hands to take it.

He thought for a moment that perhaps he’d judged Cook too harshly, thought perhaps this was Cook’s way of referring him to a counseling service, an apology for oblique accusations of lying and hysterics Cook had made years ago.  But as Cook stood to circle around the desk, Hector finally processed what the card said in shocked silence.

A phone number, and very professional, bland type: _Gentlemen’s social club - All tastes indulged_

“One does what one must to move on with life,” Cook said, coming to stand too close.  He brushed a strand of hair out of Hector’s face, Cook’s fingertips burning cold where they lingered too long on Hector’s cheek.  “Of course, if there’s any other way I can personally be of help,” he said, and let it hang there.

Hector stood as if he’d been burned, stumbling against the chair and knocking into the desk.  “I—I—that’s very kind, sir, but I—I—I ought to be going—“ The door jamb hit him squarely between the shoulder blades as he stumbled back into it, searching desperately for the door knob.

“ _Keeler_ ,” Cook said sharply as Hector got the door open.  Hector swallowed and steadied himself, or tried to, hoping Cook couldn’t see the shake in his hands.  “You’d do well to consider what I said.  You’ve a lot of potential I would hate to see wasted,” Cook said coolly, and with that let Hector flee, the threat following him home, lingering after the first bottle of wine and well into the second and third.

* * *

Hector woke the next morning bleary, hungover, and very briefly, happy.  Only briefly, not remembering why Encke’s text would be flashing on his phone, not remembering why his eyes were sandy from crying, why he felt more wrung out than even a three bottle of wine hangover would account for.

Two texts from Encke at three and three fifteen that morning: _Go to bed, Keeler_.  And, _Remember to drink some water_.

Hector rubbed his eyes, humiliated, not remembering what exactly he’d said when he’d called Encke (his phone said three times, between one and 2:45 am), but sure it had been wretched and pathetic if Encke had texted him back on a school night.  Their first contact since Encke left, with Hector no doubt crying about Cook, or something equally stupid.

He owed Encke an apology at the very least, for waking him up in the middle of the night, and for anything he might have said (if they’d talked at all, Hector couldn’t remember, or worse, if he’d just cried to Encke’s voicemail).  As he dialed, Hector tried not to admit to himself that as mortifying as it would be to apologize, as humiliating as it would be to know how badly he’d embarrassed himself the night before, he desperately wanted any excuse to talk to Encke.

On the first ring, Hector jiggled his foot, trying to remind himself not to babble.  On the second, he swallowed, his mouth dry with nerves.

On the third, it went to voicemail and Hector hung up.

He took one deep breath and blew it out, then another, trying to calm the jitters in his hands as he tapped out a text message.  Better that way anyway; Hector would have embarrassed himself again, begging Encke to take him back.

_I’m sorry about last night_ , Hector sent him finally.  Short, professional, desperately trying to regain his dignity, hoping against hope that Encke might see it and not think too poorly of him.

He’d just put the phone back on the nightstand to shower and get dressed when it buzzed, almost before it left his hand.

One new text.  Encke, answering almost immediately.

_Don’t worry about it_.

Hector cradled his phone in the dark bedroom, torn between unbearable gratitude that Encke had answered and irrational anger that he _had_ been there, had seen his phone light up with a phonecall, and decided not to answer it.

With shaking hands, Hector started another text.  Maybe Encke just wanted to keep things at arms length for a while, move slowly back to being friends, and maybe that would be for the best, give them time to get to know each other again without the tension of moving too fast.

~~_Want to get drinks?_ ~~

~~_I miss--_ ~~

~~_How have you be--_ ~~

_Do you want to have coffee sometime?_ Hector sent finally, before he could think better of it.

The phone stayed silent, though, so long that Hector finally had to start getting ready for work.  He toted the phone with him, leaving it on the bathroom counter as he showered, sneaking looks at it as he drove to work and had lunch with Abel later.  

But Encke didn’t text or call back, not that day and not the next or the next, and Hector thought every day about trying again.  In the end he thought better of it, couldn’t bear the humiliation, and instead threw himself into his numbers at work and drinking alone at home.

* * *

He made himself start dating again, no use drinking himself to sleep alone every night when he could just as well get a start on it with someone else.  Even if Encke refused to return his calls, even if it was easier (though more painful) to have dinner with Cain and Abel and their baby and their perfect happy domesticity.

He started dating women again, couldn’t stomach the thought of trying to meet men after Cook’s office, on edge and anxious every time he went to work.  He went to a wine bar to meet women, a trendy Earth import filled with former navigators, other expats and colonials looking to move up.  The kind of place Encke had hated.

Hector frowned down at his phone, the text from the woman he was supposed to meet mocking him with her last-minute apology and offer to get together another time, when someone else bumped into him and almost made him spill his wine.

“ _Keeler_?  What are _you_ doing here?”

No mistaking the voice, Hector knew who it was even before he looked up from his phone.  Phobos, dressed much too twee with a pink sweater thrown over his shoulders and his hair pulled back into a ponytail.  The little snot gaped as Hector glanced past him, hoping Porthos was nearby.  “I was meeting someone,” Hector said distantly, scanning the room.

Phobos’ face twisted into a snide little smile at that and Hector knew he’d given away too much; anything was too much to give Phobos, whose only talent was twisting every scrap of information into ammunition for his endless sniping.  “Did he stand you up _again_?” Phobos sneered, of course referring to Encke.  “I was _so_ sorry to hear he broke off your engagement.”

“She, and thank you.  Where’s Porthos?” Hector demanded, wishing Phobos was still in the military, if only to give Hector a way to make him hold his tongue.  Not that Phobos had ever been very good at following orders then.

“Oh, Claude is at home,” Phobos said airily.  “I’m here so Elias can take me suit shopping for the wedding.  He’s going to walk me down the aisle, you know,” Phobos said, taking a sip of his own glass of wine.

“Elias—?” Hector asked before he thought better of it, realizing the answer too late.

“Oh, _Commander Cook_ to _you_.  You’re not the only one with an _arrangement_ , Keeler.”  Phobos smiled, just as the man himself came up to put a hand on Phobos’ waist.

Cook wore a dark button up and contacts rather than glasses, making him look both younger and more severe than he looked in uniform despite his warm smile.  “Hector, what a pleasant surprise,” he said, and Hector didn’t miss Phobos’ little scowl of irritation.

“You look very . . .” Phobos cut in, and paused dramatically, making Hector and Cook both glance at what Hector was wearing.  Just dark jeans and a soft grey tshirt, his leather jacket thrown over the back of a chair.  Ramona had once said it made him look strong and a little dangerous, so he wore it to make her happy, to pretend once in a while that someone might be attracted to him for his strengths instead of his vulnerabilities.  “. . . mature,” Phobos finished, and it suddenly seemed a very empty pretend, cheap and flimsy with Cook smiling at him.

“Remy, darling, why don’t you fetch us another bottle of wine,” Cook said without looking at Phobos.

“But—“

Cook flicked his eyes at Phobos, suddenly sharp.  “Tell them to put it on my tab.  Get that moscato you were whining about earlier,” he said, his tone even and dangerous.

Phobos pouted briefly, glaring once at Hector and looking like he was going to argue again, visibly thinking better of it when Cook looked at him again.  Phobos flounced off to the bar, leaving Hector alone with Cook, whose fingers were suddenly at his elbow, guiding him to a seat.

“I’m sorry about Remy, he’s much more pleasant company when he’s . . . occupied,” Cook said, smiling at Phobos’ back.  “You look quite nice.”

“I, um—“ Hector swallowed, trying to think of something safe to change the subject to.  “I’ve almost got the report on the new contractor done, I should have it finished once Abel—“ Hector babbled, trying desperately to turn the conversation back to work, to anything, to remind Cook that his arm should have been anywhere but draped across the back of Hector’s chair.

“You’ve been putting in long hours lately,” Cook said quietly.  “I hope you’re not overworking yourself.  We are ahead of schedule, you know.”

Hector shrugged and took a sip of his wine, deeply uncomfortable.  He felt, or thought he could feel, Cook’s fingers stroking his hair, just light enough that he would have to look to be sure, and it made his skin crawl.  It was innocuous, uninvited and just subtle enough it was impossible to say anything about it.  Hector watched Phobos order at the bar, wishing for the first time that Phobos was there to make things less awkward.

“You’re handling it better than I did,” Cook said absently, also watching Phobos.

“Sir?”

“Your fighter leaving,” Cook said.  “I don’t know if it’s better or worse for it to end during an enlistment, but you certainly seem to be handling it better.”

Hector flushed, didn’t want to know it, didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to be there, with Cook’s fingers gently stroking Hector’s neck just below his ear, sounding so sympathetic, sounding like someone Hector could imagine himself being in ten years.

Phobos rescued him from it, albeit ungracefully, flouncing back with the bottle of wine and glaring at Cook’s hand casually threaded through Hector’s hair.  If it could be called a rescue with Phobos only barely avoiding spilling the bottle into Hector’s lap, and then settling back to put a hand on Hector’s knee with a pointed look at Cook.

Hector sat up as straight as he could, trying to take up as little space as he could, trying to be all elbows as Cook and Phobos talked past him about shopping and wedding planning and Porthos.  Porthos, who had listened to Hector sob on the night Encke left, told him he was better off without a colonial anyway, and said he couldn’t make it to visit for the weekend.

Porthos, who should have been there all along.

Phobos’ nails digging into his knee shook Hector out of it, the horrid little snot smiling brightly and flicking his eyes at Cook, who had obviously just repeated himself.

“We were going to have drinks at my apartment after this.  If you’d care to join us,” Cook said evenly, watching Hector too closely.

He thought about it, god help him, like he’d thought about calling the number Cook had given him, thought about finding someone who looked enough like Encke to hurt, because Encke didn’t want him, because Porthos didn't, because Abel and Cain, Ramona and Melody and Lucinda didn’t want him.  But here were Cook and Phobos, and Hector actually thought about it, what it would be like to take Cook up on his offer.

He had his career to think about, after all, the only thing which had gotten him through all the rest.

_You’ve a lot of potential I would hate to see wasted._

Hector stood carefully, hoping he hadn’t shuddered visibly as he shakily excused himself, unsure if he was more frightened of Cook, with his veiled threats and his easy invasion of Hector’s privacy, or Phobos, with his jealousy and his petty malice.

“We’ll see you at the wedding, _Hector_ ,” Phobos sneered.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the Keeler POV of Cain and Keeler's conversation in [ch7 of After](http://archiveofourown.org/works/534165/chapters/955315), in case you need a refresher, but this should be readable without re-reading that.

Hector fiddled with the stem of his wine glass, Ethan gone to bed and leaving him alone with Cain, awkward and comfortable at the same time.  Cain had no pretense like Phobos, no ulterior motives like Cook, no possibility that he might ever care, like Porthos, or Abel, or Encke.  Cain wore his dislike of Hector plain and obvious, and Hector respected him for his honesty, at least, their relationship refreshingly uncomplicated, unlike so many other parts of Hector’s life.

“Why’d you join up so young?” Hector asked as the conversation turned away from Encke, not able to imagine joining the military at seventeen.  He’d barely managed boarding school at that age, flirting with Porthos and scared to do any more, couldn’t imagine what he’d have done if he’d met Encke at that age.  Been terrified and fascinated, probably.

Cain shrugged, frowning at his wine.  Hector hadn’t understood it the first few times, when Cain had snapped at Ethan for serving wine instead of beer, surly about something so mundane, until Hector realized it was a masculinity thing, all about trying to be more butch than Hector in front of Encke.  For a while Hector had enjoyed needling Cain about it, taking petty gratification from rubbing Cain’s nose in it, that no matter how Cain played at machoness, no matter how jealous Hector was of his baby, and his relationship with Ethan, and the way Encke looked at him, Hector had already won in all the ways that mattered.  Until it turned out that he hadn’t, and they were left drinking wine alone together.

“The military sounded better than sticking around foster homes for another couple years,” Cain said finally, shifting uncomfortably.  “Wasn’t gonna graduate anyway, it was easier to just get a fake ID and leave.”

Hector frowned, not following.  “Wait, why—why did you—”

Cain cut him off with a glare, looking Hector in the eye for the first time that night, and Hector saw a flash of himself reflected back, Cain expecting to be needled over this too, all the class and circumstance dividing them.  “ _Said_ , I was too busy sucking cock for rent money to finish school, thought _James_ told you all about that already.  _Sir_ ,” Cain sneered, in the tone that Hector hated, every reason Hector had always needled him, because he was like all the other fighters with his swaggering bullshit, but safe to goad and put down because he was always so clearly under Ethan or Encke’s control.

“I—I just meant the fake ID,” Hector stuttered, off balance with the vicious left turn the conversation had taken.  “He didn’t—James never said anything like that about you, I just—I thought they let fighters sign up at seventeen.”

Cain laughed bitterly.  “They do, but I wasn’t.  Got the fuck out of here when I was fifteen, never thought I’d have to come back to the shithole.”

“Did—did James know?  How old you were?”  Hated to ask, but he had to know, wondering if this was why Encke carried around all that guilt, trying to make up for something he wouldn’t talk about.  Had to know if Encke had lied to him about it.

Cain gave him an unreadable look, searching almost, like he was thinking about how he wanted to answer, weighing something.  Hector wondered not for the first time what had happened between them, what Encke had meant by _It was never about sex_ , what it meant that Encke called Cain Fifty but Ethan said he’d left basic as Six.  “No,” Cain said finally, looking away.  “We didn’t talk a lot.  Not about that, anyway.”

The silence stretched out between them after that, Cain tossing back the rest of his half-full glass of wine like it was nothing, reaching across Hector to grab the bottle and pour their glasses too full again, obviously trying to finish off the bottle and have an excuse to go to bed.  They’d never managed a polite conversation, not even with Ethan and Encke sitting there with them, Hector only managing his jealousies by pretending Cain wasn’t there, talking past him.  Hector fidgeted, uncomfortable thinking about what that must have been like, about what it would have been like to know Encke that young, and all the rumors he’d heard about what fighters went through in training.

“I, um, I’m sorry,” Hector said finally, when the silence got too awkward.  Had to say something in the quiet, too uncomfortable with Cain frowning at his glass of wine.

“What for?” Cain asked the table, sounding half distracted.

“I just, I didn’t mean to bring it up—fifteen is so young—“

“It’s just the way things were,” Cain said, shrugging.  Fiddled with his wine glass, frowning at something far away and not really paying attention to Hector any more.  “Shitty things happen, not like we were asking for it.”

“We?” Hector breathed, not sure he’d heard right, heart suddenly racing.  “James didn’t—he wouldn’t—“

Cain glanced up at him then, looking like he’d just remembered who he was talking to, coming back to what he’d said.  “No, he didn’t, just—basic is, uh, things happen, and, uh, other guys did,” Cain shrugged, mouth pressed thin.  Looked away again, both of them pinned in place and unsure how they’d gotten into this conversation or how to get out again.  “I, um,” Cain said, stopped himself, and started again.  “I—uh—I saw the video, I knew Laius in the service.  Thought Ei—thought Encke told you about that too.  I know what that’s like, having people see you like that.”

Hector breathed slowly, piecing that apart.  He’d always assumed that most of the fighters had seen the video, because that was the point of the thing, especially after he’d made lieutenant, photographic proof for the fighters that no matter what Fleet and the navigators tried to do, there was one way that they would always have control, even over officers.  It was just another thing to be confronted with it, and like this, over a glass of wine in the safety of Ethan’s softly lit dining room, a former fighter hunching his shoulders and saying he knew what it was like and no sneer or disdain behind it.

“You do?” Hector managed finally. 

“Yeah,” Cain said, and Hector wondered if there had been other rumors he hadn’t heard, things fighters said about each other.  “It’s shitty, everybody thinking they know about you, acting like you wanted it.  I never really—I didn’t really deal with it til Ethan.  You ever talk to anybody about it?”

“I, um, no, not really.  The—the Sleipnir’s psychiatrist, right after the first time, he gave me some sleeping pills but I—I flushed them, I didn’t want to sleep through it, and I was afraid I’d take them all when it got bad enough.”  He’d hung onto them for too long, staring at a handful of them some nights alone in the bathroom as his first Encke waited in bed, but the thought of falling asleep during it and never waking up was too much.  And some small, vengeful part of Hector wanted to take Laius with him, in one last burst of sparkling heat, and have the bastard know that Hector had gotten them killed intentionally.  Sleeping pills had seemed too easy for both of them.

Cain snorted another bitter laugh.  “That guy was a fucking asshole.  You ever talk to anybody useful?”

“J—Encke.  He’s been very sweet about it.”

“Do you love him?” Cain asked suddenly, giving Hector a sharp look through his hair, half confrontational and half hiding, demanding and looking to be slapped back, and the tentative presumptuousness of it reminded Hector to be angry, angry that some fighter, some _colonial_ thought he could presume to ask _that_ , of all things.

“What kind of question is that?  We were going to get married.  Just because you—”

“This ain’t about me and him, it’s about you and him,” Cain snapped.  “Getting married and being in love isn’t the same thing.”

“I—of course—of course we were in love, we—“  Hector tripped over it, trying to justify it to Cain, trying to justify it to himself, his own words empty as he stumbled over all the times Encke had never said it back, all the times Hector had said it for all the wrong reasons.

“Lieutenant, sir—you don’t got to love someone just because they don’t hurt you.”

Another tense silence, this time with both of them staring at each other, everything they had in common just something else to hurt each other with, worse now that they both knew it.  “That’s not how it is.”

“Look, I seen the way you look at Ei—at James, and I know that look, that’s the way it was me and Ethan for a while.  That’s how it was with me and James. You just—sometimes, when being hurt is all you got for so long, the first person who comes along and doesn’t hurt you is hard to let go of.  Being grateful ain’t the same as love.”

Hector took a drink of his wine, too much, just to get this farce over with so they could never speak of it again.  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.  You don’t know anything about me, or James.”

Cain took a breath, his face dark, then closed his mouth.  Started to say something again, closed his mouth and shook his head.  “Look, I only brought it up in case, if you want, there’s a group down at the VA I go to, helps with the nightmares and makes things better with Abel.  It’s mostly just coffee and bullshit, but it’s, you know, guys who know about all the bullshit.  There’s a waiting list for individual sessions if you don’t want to talk about it in front of fighters, the wait’s just kind of long.  There’s some navigators there too, though, so you wouldn’t be, you know, the only one.”

It was too much all at once, Hector didn’t want to think about it.  Didn’t want to think about Cain and Encke young together, didn’t want to think about having anything in common with Cain, didn’t want to think about all the guilt Encke carried around and why.  Didn’t want to think about Cain trying to help, however clumsily, after everything Hector had said, trying to knock down someone he knew wouldn’t fight back in order to feel better about himself.

“I’ll think about it,” Hector said eventually, as they both finally finished their glasses of wine.  Handed his glass over as Cain stood, neither of them making eye contact.  “Good night, Cain,” Hector said, trying to put all his coldness in it, to get away from the situation and ever having to think about it again.

Cain took the glasses and the bottle to the kitchen in silence.  Came and stood in the hallway to the bedroom, giving Hector another measuring look where he still sat frowning at the dining table.  “Sacha,” he said, hesitating, shifting his weight.

“What?” Hector asked, a little too sharp, but all he wanted was to lay on the couch and nurse his resentments.

“It’s not Cain any more.  It’s Sacha,” Cain said, an unreadable look on his face.  “Sir.”

Hector looked at him, tried to look through him, at everything he’d ever been jealous of Cain for, wondering why he was being given this.  “Hector,” he said eventually.

That must have been it, whatever Cain was waiting for.  “Night, Hector,” he said over his shoulder, padding down the quiet hallway to check on the baby, finally leaving Hector alone in the soft warm light.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Ch 8 of After](http://archiveofourown.org/works/534165/chapters/955318) happens between the previous chapter and this one; probably a good idea to read that if you haven't yet, or some of this ch won't make much sense.

James watched him as they drove back, arm slung over the back of Sacha’s seat as they smoked and made awkward small talk.  Watched him and wondered what it would have been like if he’d noticed it then, that Fifty was funny and sarcastic and smart, and not just a problem to be managed.  Wondered why he had to realize it then, wondered if he’d have hurt Keeler this badly if he’d realized that about either Keeler or Fifty earlier.

Sacha threw him a sideways grin, laughing to himself at some story about the baby James hadn’t been paying attention to, and as unfair as it was, James thought about pulling Fifty to him to kiss, forgetting about Abel and Keeler both and making things work out the way they should have.  But that was nerves talking, the closer they got to Cain and Abel’s apartment building, and it wasn’t fair to Keeler, or Abel, or Cain, finally happy with someone.  Mostly happy, anyway, happy enough to be scared of losing it, and James kept his damn hands to himself thinking about why he’d taken the coward’s way out with Keeler, too scared to face losing the kind of happiness Keeler wanted.

Cain stalked up the stairs to the apartment, gone quiet like he’d felt the mood shift too, not quite sure how bad it was going to be once they actually got there.  The easy part was getting in the car; the hard part was actually facing Keeler, just like it always had been.  Easier to climb in the fighter and blow shit up than ever talk about anything, because talking about it made it feel too much like sobbing into Morgan’s arms after his parents died, and he’d never wanted to feel that raw, young and vulnerable ever again.

He’d never wanted to, but he did, painfully vulnerable standing there suddenly alone on Cain and Abel’s welcome mat, Keeler looking as vulnerable as he made James feel.  Easier to pretend that he could protect everyone else, rather than ever admit that maybe he was vulnerable sometimes too.

“I don’t know, Abel, he won’t even return my calls—“  Keeler sat up straight as the door closed behind them, looking worse than James had expected, even after Keeler called him crying about Cook.  Deep circles under his eyes as he glanced between James and Cain, fiddling with his hair and not quite looking James in the eye.  Not that James was any better, scowling at his shoes until Cain pushed a bottle of beer in his hand and shoved him at Keeler.

James took one step and then another towards the table; putting one foot in front of the other was the easy part.  Actually facing Keeler, and the horrible awkward silence that stretched out between them, was the hard part.

“I didn’t, um—“ Keeler stumbled as James sat at the table and Cain disappeared into the kitchen with Abel.  “I didn’t realize you’d be here, I didn’t mean to intrude,” Keeler said finally.  His voice was quiet and even, like when he was trying painfully hard to keep his composure.  “I can—I can go—have, um—I hope you have a nice dinner with them—“ Keeler stood, flushing with embarrassment, like he’d been the one to walk in uninvited.

James caught his hand, his own fingers damp from the condensation of the beer bottle where he brushed the warm skin of Keeler’s wrist.  “I’m not here to see them,” James said quietly, just over the noise of the baby squealing happily in the kitchen.

“Oh,” Keeler half-whispered, flushing even deeper.  He let James tug him back down into his chair, but took his hand out of James’, and the silence stretched out between them again.  “Um—how’s—um—how’s your aunt?” Keeler asked, fidgeting with his wine glass.

“She’s good.”  _Don’t fuck this up, boy_ , Morgan had said when he’d stopped back to the house with Sacha.  She’d given both of them a kiss on the cheek goodbye, and Sacha a squeeze, making him promise to come back to visit with his baby and his pretty navigator.  And then she gave James a pointed look and pushed them out the door.  “She—uh—she wants to know if you want to go over for Sunday supper,” James said.

Keeler took a sharp little breath, glancing up and back down again, focusing intensely on his glass of wine.  Sat up a little straighter again, his jaw tight as he swallowed once, twice, thinking.

“I don’t—“ Keeler started, taking a delicate breath, and James kicked himself for taking Fifty’s word that Keeler even wanted to see him again, since Keeler had every reason to not want him back, despite the desperately polite texts and barely coherent, painful phone calls.  “I don’t know what you want from me, James,” Keeler said finally, slipping back into his voice of cool, professional distance.  “This isn’t fair.”

“I—“ James caught his own breath, Keeler looking him dead in the eye for the first time.  And there it was again, the awful vulnerability Keeler made him feel, had always made him feel.  “I don’t know either.  Do you want me to leave?”

Keeler finally looked down, like that first time James had tried kissing him, the soft fall of his hair hiding his eyes.  James set his beer bottle on the table, trying to find the breath to apologize for hurting Keeler like this again before he left for good this time.

“You cut your hair,” Keeler said, before James could find the words for it.

James scrubbed a hand over his head, fresh shaved down everywhere.  “Yeah, I, uh—had to do some thinking.”

Keeler laughed at that, a short, bitter little sound, and James wished he hadn’t said it, but it was true.  He’d needed to start over fresh, think about what he was doing with his life without all the promises he’d made to Keeler or Fifty hanging over him, but that had always been his problem, running his damn mouth without thinking about what he was saying.  So he didn’t say anything else, just watching Keeler’s hands twist over each other in his lap.

“Do you want to start over?” Keeler asked finally.

James looked down at here his own hands, knuckles tight, mirroring Keeler without thinking about it.  “How do you mean?” he asked carefully.

Keeler shrugged, mouth pressed thin.  Glanced at James and back down at his own hands.  “I don’t know,” Keeler said quietly.  “Dating.  Talking.  Therapy.”

“I—“  James was cut off with a handful of cloth napkins thrown in his lap.

“Hey,” Cain snarled from the door to the kitchen, Natasha on his hip.  “Take off your fucking shoes and set the table, dinner’s almost ready.”

* * *

They somehow made it through dinner, James flustered and off balance when Keeler’s hand brushed his passing the salad until Cain elbowed him in the side and yanked the dressing away.  And then they were walking down to Keeler’s car after a quick kiss on Abel’s cheek and a murmured _goodnight Sacha_ , leaving James to trail after Keeler’s quiet steps and hope that this was okay.

The apartment was neat, painfully, precisely tidy, all evidence of the two of them taken down, stripped out of Keeler’s life.  Everything, really, had been stripped out of Keeler’s life, no sign of a girlfriend or even work, the apartment as bare and uninhabited looking as their shared room aboard ship the first night James had been assigned as his new Encke.  Nothing like the happy chaos of what their life together had been like, drifts of packaging when they’d moved in together and discarded socks and coffee cups from weekends spent lying around the apartment.

James stood in the entryway as Keeler moved through the apartment, quiet and without acknowledging James’ presence, like those first few nights together as Keeler disappeared into the kitchen.

But then the spell was broken, and thank god for it.  “Do you want a drink?” Keeler called.

“Whatever you’re having, sweetheart,” James yelled.  Shrugged out of his jacket and shivered in the cool apartment, but thought better of pulling his jacket back on.  Keeler was doing his best to start things over, like this was the end of a date and not moving back in together without really talking about it; keeping his jacket on felt too much like saying he wasn’t planning on staying.  James tiptoed into the bedroom, thinking to grab a sweater 

Everything else in the apartment was painfully tidy, but the bedroom was a little reproduction of Keeler’s office, a disaster containing his real life, where it was safe to let the disorder take over, unlike the room he shared with a fighter, where it was too dangerous for him to leave anything personal.  In their bedroom, Keeler’s usual side of the bed was neat and untouched, James’ side twisted into a little nest, an empty bottle of wine sitting on the nightstand.  James crossed the room without really thinking about it, picked up the picture frame that had been laid face down on the nightstand; the photo of them on vacation.  Keeler hadn’t gotten rid of it, he’d just moved it somewhere safer.

“Oh god . . .” Keeler said behind him, standing in the doorway looking sick.  “I’m sorry, I meant to pick up, I—I’m sorry.”

“Keeler, baby, you don’t have anything to be sorry for.  Come here,” James said, holding out his hand.  

Keeler crossed the dark room reluctantly, dragging each step out without looking up.  Stopped just within reach, biting his lip.  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—to be so creepy,” Keeler said finally.  “I was just lonely, after everything.”

James reached a hand out to brush fingertips down Keeler’s sleeve.  He was more solid than he looked, but he looked insubstantial, ready to blow away through the big wall of windows, tired and thin.  “This ok?” James asked, stroking Keeler’s elbow.  Keeler nodded tightly, still not quite looking at him.  “I missed you,” James said after a while.  Couldn’t think of anything else to say to make it less awkward, standing there in the dark of the apartment he’d just walked out of, leaving Keeler all his baggage to deal with.

Keeler took half a step closer to close the distance between them.  Tentatively put a hand on James’ arm and leaned into him, letting James pull him closer the rest of the way.  

Keeler smelled the same, like too much coffee, long weekends and frustration, all the vulnerability and domesticity James had ever wanted.  Keeler sighed the same, breathy and a little hesitant, when James brushed the hair away from his neck and bent to kiss his ear, Keeler’s breath warm against his shoulder.

Keeler tasted the same when James tipped his narrow face up to kiss, and it wasn’t until Keeler didn’t kiss back, worse than that first time James had tried it, because Keeler was just going along with it instead of trying to pull away, that James realized it was too much the same.

He pulled back, running a thumb over Keeler’s lips.  “What’s wrong?”

“I just . . . don’t want to do something wrong again.”  Keeler flushed, guiltily looking for something on the floor.  “I . . . Um.  I can sleep on the couch tonight, I’ll drive you back to your aunt’s tomorrow.  Sorry.”

“Keeler,” James sighed, knew almost immediately that it was the wrong thing to say from Keeler’s deepening blush, and tugged Keeler down to sit next to him on the bed.  _I didn’t mean it, I won’t ask for anything again_.  “That morning wasn’t why I left, it was a lot of things I was too chickenshit to talk about.  I just—I got scared, I didn’t want to hurt you, and I didn’t know what to do about it.”

They sat there in the dark, facing away from the windows with just the light from the kitchen casting shadows over their shoes.  Not quite touching, close enough to feel the heat through Keeler’s sleeve.

“It won’t really be like starting over, will it,” Keeler said after a while.

“No, I guess not.  I don’t know.  Do you want me to sleep on the couch?  I can catch the train in the morning.”

Keeler shook his head without looking up, but scooted closer, shrugging James’ arm over his shoulder like when they’d watched Twelfth Night and ended up necking.  Not so stiff and uncertain this time, James pulled Keeler close and let Keeler push him back to lie down.

They lay there like that, fully clothed on top of the comforter, with Keeler’s head pillowed on James’ chest.  James watched the light on the ceiling, the faint glow from those huge, terrifying windows, until Keeler kicked off his shoes and James did the same. Easier that way, less vulnerable than trying to undress with each other again, when they both felt raw and naked anyway.


	14. Chapter 14

Keeler didn’t slam the door as he stalked into the apartment, didn’t need to with James right behind him watching the waves of tense silence pour off him, practically vibrating with it as they drove back from the first Sunday dinner at Morgan’s.  Two months of couples’ therapy hadn’t made any damn difference, James could practically read the script out of all the other times they’d done this.

James tossed his jacket on the couch, wondering if he’d be sleeping on it tonight.  Exhausted with tiptoeing around the tension in the apartment for the past few weeks, and then worrying over this dinner that obviously hadn’t gone well.  “Keeler, whatever you’re going to say, just say it—“

That was the wrong thing to say, Keeler rounding on him with a tight jaw, that look every reason that Keeler didn’t need to slam doors.  “I don’t need comments about my weight from someone I just met,” Keeler snapped.  “Maybe you should just take _Sacha_ over there from now on, then I won’t have to hear about how much better I’d look without fucking bags under my eyes, like I don’t know that.”

“Well, maybe if you’d actually eaten something—“

“I did!  Just because I can’t eat three pieces of pie doesn’t mean I didn’t like it!  And I don’t know why I should even try if she likes him better anyway.”

“Keeler, look,” James sighed, trying not to sound too annoyed.  He’d been more worried about what Keeler would think of the house, the kids, the run down neighborhood, hadn’t thought enough about how Keeler would take fussing and third helpings after a lifetime of boarding school and diets and lacrosse.  “She likes you fine.  I just told her that we were thinking about having kids and she didn’t want you to feel pressured, so she talked about Cain and Abel’s kid instead.  She’s just excited.”

That might have been the right thing to say, Keeler’s face going blank.  “You told her that.”

“Yeah.”  James gave him an uncertain half smile, scrubbing a hand over the stubble on his scalp starting to grow in.  He hadn’t shaved it since moving back in with Keeler; he’d have to make the decision soon whether to shave it down, go back to the mohawk or just let it grow.  “She—uh—helped me put my head back on straight, after she finished kicking my ass when I was being chickenshit.”

Keeler gave him _that look_ , the one James had gotten across the lieutenant’s desk, telling him he was getting promoted to Encke with no idea of all the problems that would mean.  “Did you ever think to ask if I still wanted to, James?” Keeler said slowly.

“What, why?  You said—“

“ _Before you left me_ ,” Keeler snapped.  “Things aren’t quite the same as they were, _if you hadn’t noticed_.”  Keeler turned away, looking vulnerable as he ever had.  “I don’t even know if I want to have kids any more,” Keeler said after a while, and James couldn’t tell if that meant _not with you_ , or _not ever_.

James didn’t know what to say to that so he didn’t say anything, just went to put a hand on Keeler’s shoulder.  Felt a little guilty, maybe, and a little resentful of Keeler’s change of mind, but Keeler eased back against him.  Relaxed some as James stroked the hard muscle of his shoulder, undoing the tiny, delicate pearl buttons of Keeler’s shirt, the sleeves rolled up from when he’d done the dishes.  James had sat at the table helping one of the little girls with her sentence diagrams and watched him, thinking that maybe he could do this with Keeler, a neat little domestic life with dishes and kids and maybe a dog.

Keeler looked good in a flowered apron anyway, the bow Morgan had tied for him framing how good his ass looked in dress slacks.

James kissed Keeler’s temple, finally feeling the tension ease out of him as Keeler twisted to face him, pressing his nose to James’ shoulder.  Hesitated when Keeler tipped his face up to be kissed, but went along with it, the first time they’d really kissed since that first night back.  Keeler twisted his hands in James’ shirt, pushing into him, aggressive and needy, grinding against him as they were both getting hard.

“Do you want to get a condom?” Keeler breathed, pressing himself against James, tugging the collar of his shirt to graze teeth along his skin.

That snapped James back to his senses, pulling back to put the breaks on this, Keeler wound up over everything and nothing, trying to prove something by this.  “Baby, we don’t have to do this when you’re upset—“

“Do you want to stop?” Keeler murmured against James’ neck, hands skimming down between them.

“Well, no, but you’re—“

Keeler pulled back like he’d been slapped. “ _I’m an adult too, Encke_ ,” he snapped.  “I’ll tell you if I want to stop and I’ll tell you if I want you to fuck me, but you have to trust me that I know what I want.  I don’t need you to tell me what I don’t want any more than I need you to tell me what I do want.”

“The therapist said to wait until—“

Keeler shoved him up against the wall then, stronger than he looked, all lean muscle.  Kept James pinned in place with a strong knee, stroking his cock through his jeans.  “I don’t _fucking care_ what the therapist said,” Keeler snapped, looking pissed either with James, or the button of his fly, or both.  “I’ve been doing what a therapist said for years and it hasn’t done me any good yet.  Do you want to fuck me or not?”

James answered that with a kiss, pausing just enough to brush Keeler’s loose hair away from his face.  He shuddered against the wall when Keeler replied with a bite, aggressive and standing on his tiptoes to kiss as he thumbed the tip of James’ cock.

Keeler broke away and dropped to his knees, shoving James’ shirt up just enough to bite his hip, Keeler’s other hand stroking James’ hard cock.  “Oh fuck—fuck, Keeler—“  Keeler made a pleased noise, somewhere between a hum and a growl, glancing up as he circled the tip of James’ cock with his tongue and swallowed him.

He was so fucking beautiful like that, reckless and uninhibited as he’d always been in his flying, all the ways he’d stupefied James when they’d first been paired together.  Cold on the outside, hot on the inside, Keeler’s sharp fingers digging into James’ thighs and squeezing his ass.  Keeler paused, flicking his tongue over the tip of James’ cock, raking his nails down as he did.

James bit his lip, watching Keeler sucking him off getting him almost as close as everything Keeler did with his— _fuck_ —beautiful hands and dirty mouth.  Keeler must have known that, looking up at him, backing off far enough for James to see Keeler tease and then smile wickedly, just before rolling back to his feet.  He took James by the hand and led him back to the bedroom, stripping James of his shirt without a word and shoving him down on the bed.

Pushy looked good on Keeler, especially when he tossed James the lube and a condom from the nightstand, starting to undo his own shirt the rest of the way without taking his eyes off James, who stripped like his life depended on it.  Or maybe it wasn’t pushy, Keeler flushed and hard and beautiful, like nights after he’d come back from a date, wanting to be fucked a little rougher than usual.  

Confident, not pushy.  Confident was a good look on him, always had been.

Keeler stopped to watch him, shirtless and his belt undone as James popped the top on the lube and started to slick himself, leaning back against the headboard to press one and then two fingers into himself.  Keeler stepped out of his slacks, something like his cool, professional self as he folded them neatly to lay on the dresser, but his eyes never leaving James’ face and his cock hard.  He was so fucking beautiful, skinny and all lean, hard muscle, breathing slow as he crept up the bed, putting a hand on James’ thigh.  Shoved James’ hands away, leaning in to bite the inside of his knee and his belly, biting a little sharper as James got the condom open and handed it to him.

It sent shivers up James’ legs and back, Keeler’s nails scraping the back of his thighs, electric over his scalp and back down to his cock, so that he didn’t notice at first that Keeler had started to roll the condom on James’ cock and not his own.  James sat up a little, brushed Keeler’s hair out of his face as Keeler kissed his thigh and finished rolling the condom on.  “Keeler, are you sure you don’t—“ 

Keeler looked up at him, eyes too big in his face, and James couldn’t quite read his tone.  “Do you want to stop because you want to, or because you think I want to?” 

“I just—wanted to make sure you—“

Keeler shoved him back and straddled him in one smooth movement, nothing like the shuddery, distrustful Keeler their first few months together.  “Then just _shut up_ and trust me,” Keeler snapped, taking James’ hands in his and pinning him to the mattress.  They’d never be a contest in a fight, not a real fight, but Keeler had surprise and leverage and James’ hard cock in his other hand, lubing it liberally, watching James’ face as he arched his back and curled his toes against the mattress.

And then Keeler took him in one long stroke, easing himself down slowly and letting go of James’ wrists to balance with his palms flat across James’ chest.  One or both of them sighed out a long breath, the muscles of Keeler’s thighs tense as he curled long, sharp fingers into James’ shoulders, balancing as he started to rock.  Slow at first, rolling his hips with James’ hands on his ass, braid coming loose over one shoulder.  

Fast when he caught James watching him again, as if James could ever get enough of watching him, especially the way Keeler opened his mouth with breathy little gasps as James dug his fingers into Keeler’s hard thighs.  Faster still when James pulled him down to kiss, breathless and boneless when Keeler turned to bite his ear instead, sucking bruising marks down his neck as Keeler drove them harder.

Keeler dug his nails into James’ shoulders and sat back, skinny and so fucking perfect, watching James through the soft fall of his hair, his braid completely loose now.  He pulled James up to him, kissing for not long enough before rolling them, so that Keeler was spread out on his back with his knees tucked up, James in him so deep it was all he could do to moan into Keeler’s narrow shoulder and not come right then, with Keeler’s nails digging into his ass and trying to drive James faster.

Keeler startled him, with a light slap on the ass, sharp fingers back to squeezing his ass and Keeler’s legs wrapped so tight around his waist James could hardly think, not even when Keeler bit his ear and asked, “Yes?”

“Fuck—yes, Keeler— _fuck_ —“  The sharp sting of it cut through everything else, Keeler’s warm mouth on his chest, Keeler’s tight, warm body around him, James came with a shudder, hands curled into Keeler’s thighs to lift him off the bed and curl over him.

Keeler wasn’t finished, close, but not finished, shuddering as James pulled out of him and lifted Keeler’s ass higher, to bite his thigh and suck the hollow of his hip, until Keeler made a disgruntled noise and put a hand on the back of James’ head.  Then he stopped teasing, getting Keeler slick and rolling the bead of precum away, swallowing Keeler deep as he could so that he could scrape teeth up the length of Keeler’s cock, slow, so slow before he sucked just the tip again and Keeler came with a shuddery, gasping moan.

James could have fucked him again, wished he could just do this over and over, Keeler coming with his nails scraping James’ scalp, salty and bitter as James swallowed around him, pressing a couple of fingers into Keeler to make him shudder and moan again.  

Keeler let himself be eased back down to the mattress finally, sighing as James got rid of the condom.  But when he turned back, to pull Keeler to his chest or wrap himself against Keeler’s bony back and tight, perfect ass, Keeler had moved out of arm’s reach, back turned.  The silence stretched too thin, something wrong.

James lay on his back, staring at the dark ceiling with Keeler miles away, and he didn’t know why.  Figured he might as well try, since nothing worked anyway.  “The therapist said we should talk about our feelings, after.”

“I don’t care what the therapist said,” Keeler said to the far windows.

“Keeler.”

“Fine.”  A quiet rustle on Keeler’s side of the bed as he shifted to lie on his back, voice tight.  “My feelings are tired, indigestion, and tired.  I wish things were easy.  I wish my life made sense.  I wish we could have sex like normal people without worrying what it means after.  Your turn.”

“Can’t you take this seriously?” James snapped, feeling raw and worn thin, Keeler pushing his buttons with sex and now this.  It wasn’t fair.  “I’m trying, the therapy was your idea and I wish you’d meet me half way—“

“I am being serious,” Keeler said to the ceiling, sounding a thousand times more tired than just a moment ago.  “I’m exhausted and scared that this is all just going to get us right back where we were.  I’m scared you’ll leave again because I asked for the wrong kind of sex.  I’m scared I was never what you wanted.”

“Baby, you’re everything I ever wanted,” James said, to the ceiling too, because that was easier, lying alone together in that big bed, talking to the dark.  Winced half a second too late when he heard himself say _baby_ , because when he was nervous, falling back on how he’d talked all his other navigators into bed was easier than listening and remembering what Keeler wanted.  “I love you so much I don’t know what to do about it.  I don’t know what to do and I hate it.  I just don’t want to remind you of any of it,” James said, because he was a coward and couldn’t say the word.

Keeler was quiet, so quiet James thought that might be the end of it, just as frustrating and unresolved as all their counseling sessions.

“How am I supposed to move past it if you won’t let me?” Keeler asked finally.  “I thought—before you left, I finally felt safe enough to ask you for what I wanted, and then you just—left.  It felt like—it felt like you only wanted me when you didn’t know me.”

And wasn’t that the fucking truth of it, Keeler had been easier to want before James really understood anything about him: Lieutenant Keeler was pretty and blank, a prize to win along with the promotion, something to want because everyone else did.  Hector was complicated and maddening, fragile one minute and defensively prickly the next.  More real, more interesting, more bewildering, and everything James had ever done well, he’d done well because he’d figured out the rules and followed them exactly, but every time he thought he’d figured out the rules for Keeler, something changed.

“I love you, all of you,” James said finally, because there wasn’t really anything else to say.  It was true, he’d wanted Keeler when he didn’t know him, but he needed Hector, because Hector was real and Keeler wasn’t, at least not the version of Keeler James had tried putting on a pedestal to keep him safe.  “You just scare the hell out of me.  Even if it's hot as hell when you're bossy.”  Keeler laughed at that, short and surprised, but not so bitter as he sometimes sounded.  More just tired.

There was a little sound and movement, Keeler’s hand brushing his shoulder in the dark, following the line of his arm down to his hand.  James took Keeler’s hand in his, threading their fingers together, brushing his thumb over Keeler’s cool skin.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't mean for what Keeler says in the first two paragraphs to imply that addiction or addiction recovery is shameful; just that there's not really an equivalent clear roadmap for sexual assault recovery, and sometimes the grass looks greener.

**Keeler**

Hector put the car in park after a tense, silent twenty minute drive from the VA back to Cain and Abel’s apartment building.  Three months of this, driving to group therapy together, not talking about it outside of meetings, certainly not talking about it in front of anyone else.  Sneaking off together without talking about it, like they were addicts or something shameful.  And Hector _was_ ashamed of it, of himself, sitting in the car before picking Cain up or after dropping him off, crying with frustration and exhaustion, because he’d thought he’d been able to deal with it all himself.

At least addiction meetings had twelve steps, a recovery process, instead of this drawn out, nebulous _progress_ with no end in sight.

Cain sat there in the passenger seat, not making a move to get out.  After a minute he reached past Hector to click the keys back into the on position, rolled down his window, and lit a cigarette.

“You okay?” Cain asked after a while, and only then did Hector realize that he’d never let go of the steering wheel, staring blankly out the windshield.  He took his hands down, blew out a deep breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.  Therapy made him feel both heavier and lighter, picking open old scars that had never healed quite right and making him put together more of what exactly had happened between Encke and Cain.

Was he alright?

“Mostly, I guess, or I will be,” Hector said finally.  “Are you?”

“Yeah.”  Cain tipped his head back against the seat and closed his eyes, blowing smoke in the general direction of the open window.

Hector watched him smoke, Cain’s hands beautiful in the evening light.  He couldn’t quite find the burning jealousy of Cain’s perfect life now, not after hearing his anxiety dreams of hurting the baby or Abel, not after Hector broke down telling the group that he’d never told his parents and the hand on his shoulder as he finished crying had been Sacha’s.  Not after it became clear who Sacha meant when he talked, so obliquely, about being used and abandoned.

“I was thinking,” Hector said, watching Sacha’s graceful hands to avoid having to look him in the eye, “if it would make things easier for you, I can switch to another group.  I don’t want you to feel like you have to avoid talking about Ei—about James, just because I’m there.”  

Sacha looked at him sidelong, taking a long drag of his cigarette, blowing it out before answering.  “How’re things with you two?”

“I don’t know.  Fine, I guess.  We’re seeing a marriage counselor.”

Cain’s eyebrows went up, a close approximation of surprise on his face, something else underneath.  “Congrats, Abel didn’t say anything—“

“Oh.”  Hector frowned down at his hands, twisted in his lap.  “No, we, uh, haven’t.  Just—I guess I don’t know what you call a marriage counselor if you’re not married.”

Cain laughed at that and pinched his cigarette out, flicking it away into the parking lot.  “You wanna come up and see the baby?  She just started walking.”  Hector hesitated, then made up his mind and took the keys out of the ignition, following Cain out of the car, grateful for the subject change, grateful for the distraction, of seeing the baby.  Babysitting was like work had been; simple, uncomplicated, Natasha undemanding that Hector be anything other than there, and as much better as seeing her made him feel, it only made him more anxious that having children would be nothing like that, because nothing in his life had turned out how it seemed at first.

Cain hesitated at the door of the building, and Hector braced himself, expecting him to have made up his mind about Hector switching groups.  “Don’t—uh—don’t tell Ethan I was smoking,” he said instead, a little guiltily.

“Yeah, no, of course I wouldn’t,” Hector said, and Cain gave him a conspiratorial smile, swinging an arm over Hector’s shoulders as they walked up.  Hector wondered if this was what it was like, when fighters thought they were friends.  Wondered if this was what it was like to be friends with anyone, Hector lost in his own world with school or work and never close to anyone he hadn’t ended up sleeping with.  

Except Puck, but Puck didn’t really count, since Puck was paid to be friendly and make everything better.  It was like saying you were friends with your therapist.

Except that Puck hadn’t been paid to kick Oberon out all those times and baby Hector like a stray kitten.  Hector thought guiltily that he should call and catch up.  Puck would know whether this meant Cain was being friends, and whether he should switch groups anyway.

Upstairs, with Abel nestled under Hector’s arm and Cain’s head pillowed on Abel’s lap, the three of them piled together on the floor next to the baby, Hector remembered some of what he’d been so jealous of Cain for.  Abel fit perfectly under Hector’s arm, warm and solid as Abel combed fingers through Cain’s hair, both of them so easy with each other.

Cain raised an eyebrow at Hector before putting his head in Abel’s lap, territorial but only a little, dozing and occasionally moving his head for Abel to scratch somewhere else as Abel went on about how much they were looking forward to Deimos moving in.

He should have kept his hands to himself, the way he’d gone after Abel worse than what Cook had done to Hector, but Abel leaned into him, resting his head on Hector’s shoulder when they slid down off the couch to sit with the baby.  Abel was just the only one besides the baby who seemed happy, so content and sure of where his life was going.

But then, that was what Hector had found attractive about James, too.  It was just a matter of trying to find that together again.  Not that they’d ever been so easy and perfect together as Cain and Abel.

They were so perfect together, Hector found himself agreeing when they asked if he and Encke would watch the baby for a weekend while they were out of town, helping Deimos move.  Hector drove home distracted, wishing he remembered how to look forward to babysitting.

* * *

**Encke**

James glanced up at the sound of the door, fidgety but keeping his mind off it.  The therapist said that controlling out of concern was still controlling; James thought guiltily of the security tracker he’d put on Porthos, thought about putting on Keeler, and tried to keep it light as Keeler shut the door.  “Bad traffic tonight?” he asked from the couch, keeping the book in his lap.

Keeler shook his head slowly as he hung up his jacket, distracted by something.  “I dropped off Sacha, he asked if we’d watch the baby next weekend.  I just forgot to call.”

That made him sit up, something off about the way Keeler’s eyes went big as he came back from whatever he was distracted by.  “Sacha?  Why you driving Cain home?  I thought you were at your group thing.”

“I—he—“ Keeler stopped, looking shaken, scared.  “I—I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“He goes with you to this thing?” James asked, standing carefully.  “Why would he need to?”

“I didn’t—I shouldn’t have said anything, I thought—I thought you knew.”

 _Nothing happened_.

_It’s all just a fucking sob story._

_Quit trying after the third time._

Of course James knew, even if he’d known it too late, that Fifty made all kinds of stupid deals and regretted it later, using everybody around him to get ahead.  It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Keeler; it was more that he still didn’t trust Fifty doing favors for Keeler.  Fifty had fucked, cheated and killed his way out of basic, and James hadn’t seen anything in the service that said he’d stopped looking out for his own self-interest since then.

“Look, Keeler, you know as well as anybody that Cain’s got a story for everything, if he thinks it’ll get him somewhere,” James said slowly, more angry the more he thought about it, that he’d ever thought he could make peace with Fifty and not have the little shit poison things with Keeler.  “You know what he did with Abel, with that little secret mission for Bering.  I don’t know what fucking good he thought it’d do to talk his way into group with you, but he asked for everything he got and maybe he thought—“

“Are you even listening to yourself?  What would you think if someone said that about me?” Keeler asked quietly, even though they both knew the answer to that, after Cook accused Keeler of hysterics and hyperbole.  “Why would he lie about it?  The only time I lied about it was to keep someone from using it against me,” Keeler said.

 _Nothing happened_.

“Fuck,” James breathed, feeling sick.  “Did he say that?  Did he say that about me?”

Keeler shook his head slowly, not looking at him.   Wary and distrustful, keeping himself just out of arm’s reach, whether he knew it or not.  Looking too much like Fifty, no matter how desperately James wanted to pretend they’d never been anything alike.  “I can’t talk to you about this, I shouldn’t have said anything about it in the first place.”

_Did you force him?_

“Baby, I didn’t—“

“Do you think I’d still be here, if I thought you had?” Keeler asked, finally looking him in the eye.  And if there was one small favor in the whole shitty mess, that was it, that it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, as little as he deserved it.

James thought about that as they went through the rest of the evening in tired silence, thought about it lying in bed, staring up at the dark ceiling with Keeler’s hand in his.

He’d been such a fucking asshole, so sure Fifty had been lying to him about every damn thing that he couldn’t see it when the only things Fifty had ever lied to him about had been being hurt by someone, and most of it by assholes James should have protected him from.

_Never wanted to fuck anybody but you._

_‘M fine._

_You never gave a fuck about what I wanted._

No fucking wonder Fifty had been so fucking bitter by the end of it.


	16. Chapter 16

**Encke**

Babysitting snuck up too fast, despite all the other times they’d watched Natasha for a couple hours, Keeler tearing his hair out trying to baby proof the apartment now that she was walking.  Or standing and bouncing, at least, the only walking James saw her do was all over Keeler and Cain until she got scooped up to show Keeler how to tie the baby wrap.

James stood out of the way with Abel, having his ear talked off with the litany of baby maintenance and feeding, as if he’d never taken care of this baby or any other one.  As if James hadn’t been the first person besides Cain to hold her, Abel and Deimos scrambled for an emergency long range engagement.  James had gone to sit with Cain in medical because his guilt couldn’t take the thought of even Fifty waking up alone after that, or the anxiety of waiting longer to find out if she was his.  

And then the confusion of being disappointed to find out she wasn’t.

He mostly ignored Abel anyway, trying not to laugh at Keeler’s mix of anxious and ecstatic as Cain shrugged out of the baby wrap he’d carried Natasha in, and started walking Keeler through how to wear it.  Keeler looked good playing house, concentrating on the baby and Cain’s instructions like he was learning flight controls.  

He bounced Natasha in the carrier once it was tied and James thought he’d make a good daddy, if he ever made up his mind about what he wanted.

“And don’t forget,” Abel nattered in James’ ear, and he couldn’t remember why he’d ever thought about kissing the little blond, “she needs a hat on every time you leave the house, or she’ll get sunburned—“

“She won’t burn, she’ll be fine,” Cain mumbled, standing too close to Keeler, adjusting the straps on the baby carrier.  “How’s that?”

“A little tight,” Keeler said, bouncing the baby in her carrier as he tugged on the ties around his waist.  Natasha squealed laughter at being the center of attention, slapping her fat hand on Keeler’s chest.

Cain frowned, putting his hand under the knot at Keeler’s belt buckle, of a height with Keeler and putting hands all over him with only the baby between them.  “Yeah, it’s supposed to be that tight, or she’ll hurt your back.  You can loosen it up a little if the pressure’s making her skin red, but otherwise—“

“Maybe Abel should check it, since you two are more the same build—“ James said, even though that was a damn lie, Keeler and Cain were closer in height and weight, Abel skinny and trimmer, and Abel shook his head anyway.

“Cain ties it for me, I’m not as good at it—“

“Well, maybe you should take a look at it anyway, make sure it’s not tied wrong—“

“I know what the fuck I’m doing, Eight,” Cain snapped, and if he didn’t get what was going on, Keeler did, glaring over Cain’s shoulder at James.  “It’s tied just fine, I been doing this for a fucking year.”

“It’s fine,” Keeler snapped at James before pointedly turning his attention back to Cain.  “Show me how to tie it with her in the back.”

So James backed off, trying not to be an asshole, even though he’d never been very good at that.

Keeler either forgot about it or decided to let it drop as soon as Cain and Abel were gone, the baby happily tangling his hair.  He looked good like that, happy and easy with the baby.  “We could do this,” Keeler said, smiling down as he brushed her dark wispy hair out of her face.  “Don’t you think?”

* * *

**Keeler**

“Why did we ever think we could do this?” Hector yelled over the baby’s screaming, sharp and inconsolable after dinner.  She’d pulled herself up to stand just as Hector stepped back into her, knocking her nose-first into the kitchen cabinet.  Then there was the frantic phone call to Morgan, worried first that they’d broken the baby’s nose and worried second about what order Cain would murder them if she bruised.

They’d already broken the _don’t panic_ rule, Natasha quiet for a split second until she saw Hector’s horrified look and screaming ever since.

She cried when Hector tried to hold her, she cried when Encke tried to hold her, she cried when no one held her, but she cried slightly less when Hector stood and bounced her in the middle of the room.  She’d have made a good drill sergeant, piercing lungs getting two decorated Fleet officers to stand to attention, trying to dangle keys and toys and bottles, anything to distract her.

“Abel said—“ Hector started, cut off when she yanked his hair and wailed louder, “Abel said there’s music in the diaper bag—he said to play it if she’s fussy for bed—maybe that’ll calm her down?”

Encke went to rifle through the diaper bag, over sized and over full, with everything from animal crackers to spare changes of clothes and extra sippy cups, Encke flipping diapers everywhere trying to find the tiny thing as Natasha wailed louder and yanked Hector’s hair.  “Try the little pock—“ Encke dumped the whole bag on the floor, hurrying the little flash drive to the computer and leaving everything else to scatter across the carpet.

_Heaven, I’m in heaven_

That seemed to help, Natasha’s wailing ratcheting down a decibel as she focused on the music.  Hector swayed her in time to the music, part because it seemed to help and part because his back and hips were starting to ache.

“Here, like this,” Encke said, coming up to put a hand on Hector’s waist and hold his free hand, leading them through a little box step, the baby quieting a little more.  “See?  Girls like dancing,” Encke smiled.

“Since when do you know how to dance with girls?” Hector laughed, but not too loud, Natasha starting to settle down against his chest.

“Since forever, my mother taught me,” Encke said, humming along to the music, his hand warm in Hector’s.  _The cares that hung around me through the week seem to vanish_.  “She taught piano, said nobody who knows how to waltz is ever lonely.”  _When we’re out together, dancing cheek to cheek_.  Encke laughed and pressed a kiss to Hector’s temple.  “I think she though I’d be chasing girls more than I did.”

“I didn’t see a piano at the house, did she stop playing?”

 _Dance with me, I want my arm about you_.  “Hmm?” Encke said, coming back from humming along.  “Oh, no, Morgan’s never played.  I meant my momma and daddy.  There’s pictures in the desk if you want to see some time.”

Hector leaned his head on Encke’s shoulder with the baby between them, letting Encke lead, tired and bone-sore.  _My heart beats so that I can hardly speak when we’re out together, dancing cheek to cheek._

“She sleeping?” Encke asked as the song finished and another came on.  _You don’t like crazy music, you don’t like rock and roll_

Hector looked down at Natasha curled between them, cheek pressed to his chest and chewing her hand in her sleep.  _I wonder why I love you_ Encke got an arm under her and took her weight, stealing a quick kiss from Hector.  _I guess it’s just because_ “Go sit down, I’ll put her to bed.” _baby you’re so square_.

Encke nudged him towards the couch, looking domestic and perfect with the sleeping baby.  “Abel said to give her a bath—“

“She’ll be fine for one night,” Encke said, rocking her.  “Besides, do you want to deal with trying to get her to sleep again, after that?”  That convinced Hector, going to collapse on the couch, letting Encke ale her back to the bedroom where they’d put the travel crib, looking like someone’s father.

He padded out from the bedroom a little later, barefoot in his jeans and applesauce-smeared blue sweatshirt.  Hector lay on the couch on his back, putting a hand over his eyes and hoping the quiet would last the night.

“How’s the little monster?” Hector asked as Encke sat at his head.

Smiled past the headache as Encke leaned down to press a chaste kiss to his hand and started to undo his fraying braid.  “Sleeping like an angel,” he said, combing blunt fingers through Hector’s tanged hair, gently moving Hector’s hand to his chest and starting to rub the tension out of his temples.

“It’s not fair that you’re good at everything,” Hector murmured, mostly meaning it as a joke, although it didn’t quite come out that way.

“What you mean, baby?” Encke asked, in that tone that meant he was concentrating on not sounding worried.

“Just—babies, work, sex, everything.  When I started watching your Shakespeare plays, I was afraid you’d laugh at me with another Petruchio joke, you seemed so smart.  I had Puck write me study guides and everything.”

“You didn’t,” Encke laughed.

“I did, they’re still on my tablet somewhere.  He wrote down a list of pickup lines too.  _When you do dance, I wish you were a wave of the sea, that you might ever do nothing but that._   I always liked that one.”

Encke laughed at that, really laughed, for the first time in a long time, at least since he’d moved back in.  “That little shit.  I guess I owe Puck and Cassius both.”  

Encke shifted Hector off his lap, letting him lie back on the couch before moving to nudge his knees apart and settle over him, heavy and comforting.  Hector sighed and smoothed his hands across Encke’s shoulders as Encke leaned in to kiss him.  Slow and lazy, easy and perfect.  Encke kissed like he danced, confident and sure, with just a little teasing, leading without pushing.

“I do love nothing in the world so well as you, is not that strange?” Encke murmured against Hector’s jaw.  “I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.”

“I don’t remember any of the other ones,” Hector said, a little guilty, but Encke just laughed and leaned in to kiss him again.

“You have witchcraft in your lips.  Come woo me, for I am in a holiday mood and like enough to consent.”

Hector laughed, squirming as Encke pushed up his shirt to kiss his warm belly.  “You’ve been waiting forever for an excuse to use those, haven’t you?” he demanded.

“Maybe,” Encke mumbled against his hip.  “But, if love be rough with you, be rough with love.”

“I like that one,” Hector sighed.  Pulled Encke close and crossed his ankles behind Encke’s back, Hector’s bare toes curling in the cold air as Encke mouthed his neck and collar bone.

Encke undressed him slow, warm mouth following his warm hands until Hector was finally laid out naked on the couch, Encke tugging away his pants and tossing them away toward the wreckage of the diaper bag.

“Optimistic,” Hector said as Encke pulled the little bottle of lube out of his back pocket, but not too accusatory, not with Encke slicking Hector’s hard cock and kissing apologies across his belly.

“You make me optimistic, sweetheart,” Encke murmured.  “And by optimistic I mean really fucking hard.”

Hector laughed as Encke sat back to strip.  “What happened to Shakespeare?”

Encke gave him a falsely cool look as he stood and stripped out of his pants, hard and beautiful when he stood over Hector naked before tugging him up to stand.  “Only got enough blood to operate one brain at a time, baby,” Encke said, leading Hector around to the back of the couch.  “You want more sweet nothings, you’ll have to work for it.” He leaned against the back of the couch, ass in the air and glorious.  

Hector leaned into him, wanting nothing more than to fuck both of them stupid, watching Encke stroke himself slowly and wait for it.  But even on his tip toes, it didn’t quite work, no matter what he did.  “This isn’t going to work,” Hector said finally.  “I’d need a box to stand on, you’re too tall.”

“Maybe we should get you a pair of heels after all, sweetheart,” Encke breathed, looking over his shoulder with a dirty smile.

Hector slapped him on the ass, enjoying the sound of it and the feel of Encke’s warm muscle.  “What are you talking about?” he demanded.  “Were you talking to Porthos again?”

Encke laughed, managing to sound dirty and boyish at the same time.  “Yeah, he said you’d like some heels and thigh highs.  Probably meant on him, but you’d look pretty good too.  Get you a little riding crop to go with it.”

Hector spanked him again, biting his lip watching Encke hiss and lean into it, arching his back for more.  “So would you,” Hector murmured, tugging Encke down so they could kneel on the floor.

“Yeah, or that,” Encke breathed as Hector finally pushed into him, tight and so warm.  Hector fucked him in shallow, slow strokes, letting Encke push back as he adjusted.  He was gorgeous, all the strength and confidence Hector had always wanted for himself, Hector smoothing a hand over the thick muscles of Encke’s shoulders and back, down and then up the muscles of his spread legs.  Encke’s overwhelming strength was equal parts intoxicating and intimidating.

Except when Encke shuddered as Hector leaned down to press kisses across his shoulders, except when Encke made a breathy moan as Hector reached around to stroke his cock slowly.  hector loved seeing him like that, letting him self be vulnerable and wanting, because it made him feel better about his own vulnerabilities.  Like maybe he wasn’t with Encke because he needed someone to be strong for him, just someone to be strong with.

And Encke had a beautiful ass.

They both looked up suddenly at a tiny sound from the bedroom.  Nothing more than a little peep, the baby moving in her sleep, but they held their breath for a guilty minute anyway.

“That’s what it’ll be like if we have kids,” Encke said after a while, reaching back to put a hand on Hector’s thigh.  “Have to sneak around all the time being quiet.”

“Better practice now,” Hector said, leaning back down to bite his broad shoulder, just barely reaching because of the height difference.

Encke moaned under him, not even pretending to stay quiet, and Hector pulled Encke back into him, fingers sharp to keep him in place, all of Encke’s hard muscle twisting under him.  

The carpet dug into his knees but he couldn't care, not right then with Encke close and closer, tipping his head back trying to be kissed as Hector fucked him.  They couldn't quite kiss with the height difference, but Hector tried to make up for it, biting his shoulder and stroking Encke's beautiful cock as he came hard.

"Maybe you should lead next time we dance," Encke breathed after, combing fingers through Hector's hair where he lay on Encke's chest.  


	17. Chapter 17

**Encke**

“We’re gonna be late,” James murmured into Keeler’s hair, barely over the sound of the shower.  Keeler sighed out a long breath, leaning hard with one arm braced against the wall of the shower.  

Stressed, had been for weeks since putting in for a transfer and getting it blocked by that asshole Cook, but James had thought the weekend would be better.  Keeler stood there with his head hung under the shower spray, tough, hair rinsed and not making a move to get out.

Not that James minded, exactly, with Keeler warm and pressed back against him.  He fit perfectly, tight skinny ass just the right size to pull back, just the right height to lean down and mouth the warm muscle of his shoulder, skinny and perfect and strong.

“Can we just—not go?” Keeler said finally.  “We’re going to be practically the only people without kids, and everyone is going to fuss,” Keeler said, pushing wet hair away from his face, some of it catching on his gold band.

“You were talking about looking forward to seeing Puck, though.  And how else are you going to get baby spit and cake in your hair?”  James leaned down to kiss beads of water off Keeler’s skinny shoulder.  “Or we could leave the rings at home, be secretly married and openly living in sin.”

Keeler laughed.  “That sounds like something out of your romance novels.  But Puck already knows, I told him on the phone.”

“Better stay home, then,” James said, pulling Keeler back against him, just the right height to press his hardening cock to the curve of Keeler’s perfect ass, slippery and warm under the spray of the shower.

Keeler hummed in answer, tipping his head back to be kissed, and James laced their fingers together, rocking into him.  He teased at the hollow of Keeler’s hip and the sharp bony joint, finally taking Keeler’s hard cock in hand when he moaned and pushed back, arching into it.

He pulled Keeler around to face him, getting a mouth full of wet hair before Keeler shoved it out of the way laughing. Keeler had gorgeous, perfect hands, wrapping long fingers around James’ cock as he reached out of the shower for the lube in the medicine cabinet, a bony, perfect distraction trying to suck bruising marks across James’ shoulders and chest.

Not distracted himself, though, Keeler noticed right away when James moved to lube himself and not Keeler.

“Encke, it’s not—it won’t work, let’s just do it the other way,” Keeler said, taking the lube from him. Seeing right through everything James never said, just like always, knowing without saying anything about it that James had been pushing for Keeler to top for weeks on the off chance that they might still conceive.  But Keeler just gave him a sad smile and kissed him softly, because it wasn’t going to work out that way and Keeler knew it.

Keeler turned and leaned against the wall, spreading his legs with James blocking most of the water as he lubed himself.  He was fucking beautiful, every muscle on him standing out hard and flawless.  

James pressed himself against Keeler before he was barely done, fingers curling into Keeler’s thighs as he shuddered under the hot water.  Steadied his cock to push into Keeler, tight and so unbearably perfect, Keeler taking deep, steady breaths, relaxing against him.

He bit Keeler’s shoulder, watching Keeler take one hand off the wall to jerk himself off, long fingers wrapped around his cock.  “Fuck, I love watching you do that,” James murmured against his shoulder, rock hard with just the tip of his cock pressed into Keeler and watching the tip of Keeler’s cock disappear into his hand over and over in short, sharp strokes.

Keeler laughed a little, self consciously turning his face away, and James kissed his neck in apology.  “Why?” Keeler asked breathily, and then it was James’ turn to be self conscious.

“I like knowing what you like, I like seeing you get off,” James said, biting Keeler’s shoulder, holding him steady as Keeler stroked himself and James pushed into him, so slow, feeling Keeler flutter and tighten around him.  “I like feeling you get close, I like being in you when you come.”  Keeler’s breath was erratic, bracing himself between the wall and James, legs spread and almost standing on tip toes as James fucked him in short, shallow strokes, taking Keeler’s lead.  He could feel the tip of his cock just barely slipping out and pushing back in, Keeler moaning in the back of his throat as he got close.

James pushed him flat against the wall, a little rougher than he would have otherwise, but Keeler’s breath hitched and he tipped his head back further, straining to be kissed.  “I like knowing how bad you want it,” James murmured, catching Keeler’s lip before fucking him rough, hard against the wall.  Keeler strained against him, all lean muscle and skinny legs as James snapped his hips into him, sharp and fast.

Keeler came with a long, broken moan, fingers curled against the tile of the wall and pulled James with him, hard and shuddering under the hot water, wrapped around Keeler without anywhere else he wanted to ever be.

“We’re going to be late,” Keeler said finally, pulling away to rinse off, turning in James’ arms to kiss all the scattered bruises across his chest.

* * *

**Keeler**

Encke shoved Hector behind him as the door of Sacha and Ethan’s apartment opened, blocking it and on edge, practically vibrating with it.

“Thirty, what the _fuck_ are you doing here?” Encke snarled, and Hector froze, not used to this part of Encke.  But then, Hector had picked him as lead fighter for a reason.  They stared each other down, Encke and Phobos’ little fighter Deimos, who didn’t look like much.

“He lives here,” Sacha said, looming up behind Deimos, baby on his hip.  Not so much of a baby now, one with all of them wrapped around her little finger.

The three of them shared a look, something closed and dangerous until Natasha broke it, reaching for Hector.  Sacha gave Encke a challenging look, Deimos standing out of the way as Sacha reached to hand Tasha to Hector.  He took her, not sure which side that put him on, Encke watching Sacha too closely, no one quite sure if the baby was a peace offering or the first salvo of a firefight.

“Keeler!  Congratulations, come have a beer!” Abel called from the other room, oblivious to the showdown happening at his front door.  But it broke the tension, Deimos slipping away to stand behind Abel and Sacha standing aside to let them by.  Hector didn’t miss the look Encke gave Sacha, weighing him, moving to put himself between Hector and Sacha, moving to keep himself between Hector and Deimos.

“For what?” Sacha asked Encke as Hector stepped past them, someone opening beers in the kitchen, everyone shuffling carefully around as Hector tried to keep his hair away from Natasha.

“You’re _married_!  I can’t _believe_ it, we’re so _old_ now!” Puck chirped as he untangled himself from Oberon, Hector wincing just a little at the brightness as Puck dragged him over to where Abel bounced one of Puck and Oberon’s girls on his knee.

“Was it _magical_ , did you _cry_ , did you take lots of pictures?” Puck demanded in one breath.  Oberon excused himself with a word, going to shake Encke’s hand.  “Did lieutenant sexy look dreamy in a suit?” Puck added sotto voce, in enough of a stage whisper that Encke and Oberon both caught it.

“We just went to the courthouse, Encke’s mother and my parents witnessed,” Hector said, wincing as Natasha yanked his hair.  “I think Encke’s mother cried, it was kind of a blur.”

He half turned then at a light touch on his elbow, Phobos’ old fighter Deimos offering a beer with his gray eyes and light fingers lingering on Hector’s arm.  Deimos took Natasha and passed him the beer with an unreadable look.  Pretty and delicate, something like Abel but with sharper edges.

Hector looked back, surprised at his own interest, wondering how Abel liked having both Sacha and Deimos to himself every night, wondering what it would be like if he could ever talk Porthos into giving up Phobos.  Shook that thought away as selfish and unfair, their wedding less than six months away.

“That’s pretty romantic, I guess,” Puck pouted, refilling a juice cup for one of the over-sugared little girls, one of Puck and Oberon’s or one of Cassius and Jaleesa’s, Hector couldn’t tell them apart.  “But why did you have to elope so fast?  I didn’t even have time to pick out a present,” he said, not so subtly checking Hector for a baby bump and peering around him to check Encke.  Who was not and would never, oblivious where he stood with Cassius and Jaleesa, pregnant with their third.  

But Encke had gotten the adoption forms, and made appointments with the agency.  And he winked when he caught Hector looking, making him blush like a teenager.

* * *

**Encke**

James worked himself up to it before he could think better of it, even if he could feel Thirty watching him and didn’t like it one bit.  He waited until Fifty stepped into the kitchen with just Abel and made himself do it like getting his head shaved, because it was going to be awkward no matter what and better to just get it done with.

“I can’t believe she’s one already,” Abel murmured, head on Cain’s shoulder.  “It doesn’t feel that long ago.”

Thought better of it almost as soon as he stepped in the doorway, but it was too late then, Abel looking up at him.

James cleared his throat, standing there awkwardly.  “Sacha.  You got a minute.”

Cain read something in his look, on edge with his expression shuttering closed.  Not going well already.  Not going well from the minute they walked in the door with Thirty standing there, not going well from that first night of basic, but James had to do something  “Abel,” Cain said without looking at the little blond.  “Go take Deimos another beer.”

“But he’s got one—“

Cain pushed a beer into Abel’s hand, practically shoved him out of the kitchen with a look out the door at Thirty.  James caught the look that went between the three of them, Abel worried, Cain deliberately blank.  James didn’t miss the look that Keeler gave him either, worried and mouth pressed thin, or the measured, warning look Thirty gave him.

James leaned on the counter, Fifty watching him with a wary look that was halfway between snarling and halfway between his younger desperation for approval.  Neither of them quite sure how to get past either of those, but they had to at least try.

“Kids seem like they’re having a good time,” James started, watching Cassius and Oberon’s pack of feral children screech around the apartment, the baby clapping her hands from the couch.  “Abel went a little overboard with the pink shit, though.”

“I picked out all the pink shit, she’s a fucking princess,” Fifty said, sticking out his jaw like he was ready for a fight.  _It’s not a girl’s name._   James scowled at the floor, never very good at this kind of thing, and decided to just get it over with.

“Heard you been going to the VA with Keeler,” James said finally, to the floor to avoid having to look Fifty in the eye.  Looked up, though, when Fifty didn’t say anything.

Fifty stood absolutely still, breathing carefully like when he knew he was in trouble.  “I never touched him,” Fifty said.  “I swear to god, it’s just coffee, I never laid a hand on him.”

“Cain—“

“You can ask Abel, or Cassius, he works in the scheduling office, I never—“

“ _Sacha_.  This isn’t about that.  I just—I’m really fucking sorry,” he tried, watching Fifty.

“About what?” Cain asked warily, face turned away, watching James out of the corner of his eye, keeping an eye on Abel and Deimos out in the living room, looking unsure if he wanted to bolt or not.  Looking just like sixteen-year-old Fifty, distrustful and wary.  _You’re not mad?_

“Twenty,” James said, and Cain froze, scared of him, scared of having the shit beaten out of him for something that wasn’t his fault, and James fucking hated himself for only making worse whatever else had been done to him.  “Six and Two, and One.  What I said about you, what I made you do.  For everything, I wish things had been different.”

“It’s fine,” Cain lied, shoulders hunched, lying about everything, and James could finally see why, scared to tell the truth about anything because the truth had always gotten him in worse trouble than a lie did.  “It’s fine, forget about it.”  He fussed at a dish cloth thrown on the counter, moving carefully, but James caught the shake in his hand and the way Cain avoided looking sideways, glancing at the floor in front of James’ feet and away, tense for any movement, waiting to be shoved around.  Fifty and Keeler, obsessively folding everything just so because they didn’t have control over anything else in their lives.

He reached a hand out for Cain’s shoulder.  “Look, I—“  Fifty slapped his hand away, both of them freezing with the surprise of it, and Fifty looked away first.  Closed his eyes and turned his face away, waiting to get slapped even though it had been almost fifteen years since that first night.  “Fuck, I—Keeler told me what you said, about, fuck, what happened and that I knew, and I didn’t.  I mean, I knew, but I didn’t fucking _know_.”

Cain took slow breaths, shaky, trying to steady himself when he finally said it.  “He had no fucking right to tell you.”

“He didn’t mean to, but someone had to because I’m too much of a dumbshit to have figured it out on my own.  I thought you—fuck, Fift—Cain.  Sacha.  I don’t know what I thought, I just wish things had been different.”

“Well, they weren’t,” Cain said quietly, hiding behind the sloppily folded dishcloth.  “It was just as shitty as it was, and there’s not a fucking thing you can do about it now.”

“I didn’t know you didn’t—”

“I said _drop it_ , Eight, I don’t _fucking_ want to talk about it.  Not with you, not ever.”  Cain threw the dishcloth back on the counter and hurried out of there, leaving James to stand there in the kitchen cursing himself out.

* * *

Cassius picked up that something was wrong, good at his job because he was practically a fucking mind reader, or he was just better at picking up what it meant for Cain to hook Keeler away from Puck as James tried to slink out to the balcony.  

He was a good sergeant and a good friend, and James wished he’d realized it earlier, Cassius standing there smoking with him on the balcony while Jaleesa flirted with a very uncomfortable Puck.  James didn’t say anything about it, and neither did Cassius, because Cassius knew perfectly well all the ways he’d fucked things up with Fifty, even if he didn’t know most of the details, and Cassius probably would have told him to keep his damn mouth shut or at least wait for a better time for it.

Keeler gave James a significant look through the balcony door when he reappeared, but with no sign of Fifty, and James wished he knew how to make any of it right.

James chased Cassius off after a while, wishing he’d let Keeler talk him into staying home, but Keeler looked happy settled back on the couch with two of the little girls braiding his hair and Abel cuddled against him.  So James stayed out on the balcony, where he at least wouldn’t make anything worse.  Watched Oberon try to romance Jaleesa and her big pregnant belly away from Puck and Cassius both, and wished he could stop fucking things up long enough for things to work out half so well with Keeler.

James leaned on the balcony railing, smoking and grateful for the quiet.  He looked over his shoulder at the sound of the door, half expecting Keeler to come out and nag him for not being sociable, but Sacha slipped through the door instead.  Broader across the shoulders and a little taller than when they’d been younger, but he still moved the same when he wasn’t thinking about it, sidling up and asking for a cigarette in the barracks after dinner, trying to impress the other high numbers by seeing what he could get away with.

So James held out the pack and lighter for old times’ sake, a peace offering for earlier, but Sacha shook his head.  “Quit smoking,” he said quietly, leaning on the railing empty handed.  He just stood there, not quite touching, but closer than he’d been and not so wary as before, and James looked him up and down from the corner of his eye, smoking and trying not to spook Fifty.  Trying to just let him be and not ruin everything by letting his nerves run his mouth.

“Did you ever mean it?” Sacha asked after a while.

“Mean what?” James asked carefully, half turning to look at him.

“That we were ever friends,” Sacha said, not meeting James’ look.  “That it wasn’t just—what it was.”

That it wasn’t just exactly what it had been, that it wasn’t just Sacha getting used and passed around.

Maybe they had been friends, for a couple weeks, that little space of time between it being a deal and James deciding that Sacha hadn’t kept his end of it.

Maybe they never were, maybe it had never been anything except exactly what it was.  

“I—yeah.  Yeah, I meant it, even if I wasn’t ever very good at it.  I didn’t mean for a lot of that to happen, and I should have done better by you.  But I never lied to you, baby,” he said, even though he had, and it hit him for the first time that he’d lied to Sacha more than Fifty had ever lied to him, and in worse ways.

“You want cake?” Sacha asked.

* * *

There was cake, and then there were presents, and then there were the tears as first Puck and Oberon and their two girls said goodbye, and then screaming as Natasha got knocked down trying to play with Cassius and Jaleesa’s girls.  Can’t have a birthday without a few temper tantrums and meltdowns, Morgan had always said, and James excused himself to wash dishes once Cassius and Jaleesa said their goodbyes.

“Sir,” Deimos whispered, handing him another beer, watching him with an unreadable look.  They both glanced back into the other room, where Sacha and Hector leaned against each other on the couch, dozed off where Natasha had fallen asleep across both their laps.  “You apologized.”

Whatever James had been expecting, it wasn’t that.  But this was Thirty, who’d killed Six and fuck knew who else, and James had never been able to read him well besides knowing to stay the fuck out of his way.  “What’s it to you?” James said finally, as neutral as possible.

Thirty just drank his beer, watching Sacha.  Shrugged after a while.  “I haven’t yet,” was all he said, and James didn’t have a chance to ask what he meant by that, Abel coming up to wrap an arm around Thirty’s waist and ask for help picking up.  Tried not to wonder about what he meant, distracted anyway with Keeler sleepily disentangling himself from Sacha and the baby to come lean against James.

* * *

“No discovery of mine has made, or is likely to make, directly or indirectly, for good or ill, the least difference to the amenity of the world.  I have helped to train other mathematicians, but mathematicians of the same kind as myself, and their work has been, so far at any rate as I have helped them to do it, as useless as my own.  I have just one chance of escaping a verdict of complete triviality, that I may be judged to have created something worth creating.”  


End file.
